Development is loosely defined as a process through which something moves or increases from one level to another. It captures not only the complexities of the daily changes that we encounter in our lives, but also their sheer magnitude on varied terrains. Development is loosely defined as a process through which something moves or increases from one level to another. It captures not only the complexities of the daily changes that we encounter in our lives, but also their sheer magnitude on varied terrains.

For this instance, I look at development as encompassing changes in peoples’ lives. The complex but intricate processes effected and affected on people in an effort to bring changes on the scopes of their livelihoods. Development is the desirable rise of peoples from one level to the next.

In the pursuit of development, nations have conceptualized and implemented varied paradigms as the bed rock of their efforts. Today, no single country in the world can talk of not having its own blueprint of a desired agenda.

In his seminal book on Africa, “How Europe Under-Developed Africa”, acclaimed Guyanan Historian, Walter Rodney has brilliantly presented the blatant unequal relationship between Africa and the developed countries of Western Europe and U.S.A. Founded on a resource extractive, pillage bordering conquest typology, he threads the complexities of cause and effect from slavery to latter day neo-colonialism. Whereas Rodney’s argument mainly highlights the construct of dependency theory pitting periphery countries and those of the metro pole, it suffices in illuminating the contemporary ascendancy of neo-liberal globalization from these ashes. Subsequently it begs the question whether the assail of corporate hegemony over all our facets of life is cast in the Thatcherite There is No Alternative (TINA) stone or alternatives do exist.

The contemporary global political economy paints a worrying picture, that; subsequently, global forces have a strong influence on the nature of developmental paradigms adopted by various nations in varied contexts.

Aid is given by rich countries to poor countries to mitigate their failures and put them on a more coherent development path is modeled on this vintage relationship. As one of the core instruments that not only defines but guides the relationship of nations/states in today’s global political and economic architecture, aid has earned itself a high pedestal as a core area of focus and analysis. It is variedly referred to as Official Development Assistance (ODA) or simply Development Assistance.

Whereas, there exists a rich body of work giving core analysis from all the varied perspectives and persuasions, I argue that, with the nature of politics around aid and how these impacts on the global political economy and hence having monumental influence across the world, the Aid debate is one that cannot be brushed aside or reinforced by mere political orientations and ideological persuasions.

Case of Kenya

Riding on the crest of his constituted Commission for Africa (CfA) and stewardship of the G8 Gleneagles conference in 2005, Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, made it his mission to tell all those who cared to listen that there was need to raise aid to Africa to 30 billion pounds a year over 10 years for Africa to make strides in its development and cease to be according in his earlier words, “a scar on the conscience of the world.”

To comprehensively look through the rosy presentation made by the likes of Blair and others who insist that aid is the panacea to Africa’s problem, lets turn to the example of Kenya.

Like its sister Africa nations, Kenya turned to the IMF and World Bank plus a myriad of other institutions for both technical and financial assistance. Beginning in the early 1980s, a new era of trade liberalization, deregulation and privatization of public enterprises, concretized by the Sessional Paper Number 1 of 1986 Economic Management for Renewed Growth worsened both the debt and socio-economic crises.

The forced adjustments by the International Financial Institutions masked as Structural Adjustment Programmes not only dismantled, but also reversed the gains that the state had made in the social and economic infrastructure. Notably, they also saddled Kenya with a debt burden that continues to cripple its ability to meet its developmental needs.

Suffice it to say that the policies, conditionalities and cross conditionalities meted by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have had a devastating effect on the ability of Kenya to meet its development agenda, the culpability on the part of the Kenyan leadership notwithstanding.

After growing slowly until the late 1970s, Kenya’s external debt more than doubled in the 1980s, rising from US$3.4 billion in 1980 to US$7.1 billion in 1990. Total foreign debt peaked at US$7.5 billion in 1991 but has since been reduced modestly, to US$6.9 billion in 1996. However, within the total debt stock the share of public and publicly guaranteed debt has grown more rapidly, from US$2.1 billion in 1980 to US$4.8 billion in 1990 and to US$5.9 billion in 1995, before dropping to US$5.6 billion in 1996. While some of this debt was contracted on commercial terms, especially in the late 1970s, most of it was aid-related. As a low-income country Kenya qualified for conversion of a substantial part of bilateral aid to a grant basis, which occurred in the 1980s as mentioned above. Between 1986 and 1992 bilateral donors also provided debt forgiveness of prior ODA debt of US$700 million. The major sources of ODA debt relief were the US (US$118.5 million, while an additional US$ 38.7 million was revoked in connection with the 1991 aid freeze), Germany (DM 600 million), Canada (US$ 90 million), Netherlands and the UK. The Japanese government has not provided debt forgiveness, but has offset debt repayments with supplemental grant aid.

In the 1980s and the years preceding, Kenya was among the major aid recipients in Africa, largely to put up infrastructure so as to integrate the large rural economy into then emerging import substitution Kenyan economy. The 1990s witnessed a steady decline in development assistance to Kenya occasioned by a perception of poor governance and mismanagement of public resources and development assistance. The debt crisis of the early 1990s turned Kenya into a highly indebted nation. The debt problem was exacerbated by macroeconomic mismanagement in the 1990s, leading to a reduction of donor inflows. The government thus resorted to occasional debt rescheduling and expensive short-term domestic borrowing to finance its expenditures. Debt service has crowded out funding for capital and social expenditures. After debt servicing and salaries, there is little room left for core functions of the government, basic infrastructure, education, health and other essential services, to create an enabling environment for the private sector.

Kenya like most debtor countries has both multilateral and bilateral donors. Among the bilateral lenders to Kenya are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, UK, and USA among others. Multilateral lenders to the country include the African Development Bank, European Economic Committee, IBRD, International Development Aid, International Monetary Fund and World Bank among others.

The primary motivations for providing aid are developmental (to promote economic growth and poverty alleviation in poor countries), commercial (to cement commercial and financial relations with the aid recipient—opening markets, assuring opportunities for investors, contractors and suppliers from the aid-giving country) and political (to maintain the allegiance of governments that are politically aligned with the aid-giver—a particularly prominent feature of aid relationships during the “Cold War” era). Kenya, since her independence in 1963, was a logical candidate to receive aid for all of the above reasons. First, the government’s management of the economy was prudent and the economic track record was relatively good, at least through the 1970s, and, despite a mixed record on economic policy reform and macroeconomic outcomes in the 1980s, still relatively better than most of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA).

Kenya was for many years a relatively attractive locale for foreign investment, at least within the SSA context, especially for consumer goods industries targeted at the East African market—prior to the collapse of the East African Community (EAC) in 1997. And throughout the years of the Cold War Kenya consistently aligned itself with the West both economically and politically. However, the end of the Cold War in 1989, which essentially eliminated the geopolitical motivation for aid, coincided with a weakening of economic reform efforts and a deterioration in economic performance in Kenya in 1989-92, as well as a hardening of political lines within the country at the same time that donors were adding “good governance” and democratization to their criteria for judging the worthiness of aid recipients. The result was intensification in the “stop-go” relationship between donors and the Kenyan government, which has persisted to the present time.

Civil society and Its role in aid process

The Rome High Level meeting on Harmonization in 2003 was an inaugural international effort to critically address the issue of aid in the context of its global importance. This was followed by the Paris High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in 2005. The emergent Paris Declaration has become a guiding framework on aid subsequently.

One of the major hallmarks in Paris was the participation of civil society organizations as observers. Whereas there was no conclusive engagement of civil society as partners, it is suffice to note the recognition of the role of civil society as development actors in their own right.

This has provided a window of opportunity for civil society participation and engagement in the aid process. Today, at the climax of the process towards the upcoming High Level Forum 3 (HLF3) slated for Accra, Ghana in September 2008 to review the Paris Declaration, civil society is more resolute in its demands. Beyond inclusion and participation, civil society endeavors to see that the aid architecture is more oriented to the needs of the people and specifically the poor and marginalized. And certainly this must be more beyond commitments but in actions and targeting.

There is a broad consensus that development cooperation and aid/ODA is an essential contribution to support poverty reduction and development. Premised on the UN Resolution 2626 of October 1970 to increase aid to 0.7% of GDP by mid- 1970s, this has become an important threshold in determining aid effectiveness. Subsequent processes like the Monterrey commitments (2002), the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework and Millennium Declaration (2000) reinforce this. But a glaring admission is that aid quantities remain seriously difficult.

But is aid achieving development? This is a critical question to focus on if we are to move forward. In 2004, only 39% of aid was available to recipient countries down from 39% in 2000. With a bulk of the aid going to donor directed technical cooperation, foreign students costs in donor countries, refugees in donor countries, emergency relief, the cost of tied aid and administration costs, the picture ceases to be rosy. This raises critical questions around development strategies on the basis of program effectiveness and aid management and delivery.

Taking stock at Accra, civil society expects to monitor implementation, advocacy to strengthen governance and accountability processes and advocacy to deepen aid effectiveness of donors and partners. Hinged of five (5) core principles of the Paris Declaration; Ownership, Harmonization, Managing for Development Results and Mutual Accountability, there exist an array of fifty six (56) commitments geared to this.

Civil society recognizes that there is an unprecedented broad range of commitments to reform the aid system and the attendant delivery, but opines that there exists major glaring gaps: No key commitments at all on such key issues as tied aid, conditionality and accountability of donors; Commitments lack ambition and have low targets and unclear benchmarks; narrowly structured with focus on aid delivery rather than a broader framework of development and human rights.

By offering space for stock taking, Accra HLF3 will offer civil society a marked focus on monitoring survey, low levels of awareness and even lower levels of commitments.

Like in the example of Kenya, presented earlier, pertinent question will be under the microscope. The various forms of tied aid and the assertion that by prevailing estimates a reduction to 9% as of 2004 from 41% in 1991 is still silent on the US which is estimated to be as high as 72%. Highlighting the effects of tied aid especially on highly indebted and impoverished countries will infuse a demand to eliminate tying within a specific timeframe. Conditionality outrightly flies in the face of ownership and is contrary to human rights and people’s sovereignty.

With a need to distinguish between fiduciary responsibilities and policy conditionality there is need to expose benchmarking as conditionality. This reinforces the rallying call by civil society on the removal of all conditionalities.

In terms of redefining ownership, country ownership should not be misconstrued to mean the government only. It implies accountability of government to its citizens while underscoring the leadership of government in aid partnerships. This reinforces the critical need for capacity building for ownership. Accountability proposes participation as a key element founded on transparency.

Subsequently, civil society aspires to embed partnership leadership in development cooperation, democratic ownership of development and human rights and development of the poor as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Universal Declaration on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, and all such other agreements that mitigate diversity, marginalization and propose equitable and democratic pursuit of aspirations and people centered development.

Subsequently, civil society is united in specific demands: Conditionality, Tied Aid, Accountability and Participation of People and the United Nations as an appropriate forum/space to address all issues under development effectiveness.

While not conclusive on all fronts, this provides at least a comprehensive contour of the civil society discourse towards Accra. The politics of aid, more and better quality aid, concept of accountability both at the internal and external contexts and most of all the notion of mutual accountability. It’s time to answer the hard questions to not only define but secure our future’s prosperity.

The author is a Kenyan Researcher working with the Kenya Debt Relief Network (KENDREN). His main areas of focus are debt, aid, privatization and political economy. He is also a Visiting Scholar and Masters student at the Centre of Civil Society (CCS) based at the University of Kwa Zulu Natal (UKZN), Durban, South Africa.

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