Pieces of Samir Amin, 2009, ‘Aid’
"Aid"
a Complementary Instrument to Control Vulnerable
Countries
"International
aid," presented as being indispensable for the survival of the "least
developed countries" (UN terminology for many African countries and a few
other ones), plays its role here.
Because its real objective, aimed at the most vulnerable countries of
the periphery, is to create an extra obstacle to their participation in an
alternative front of the South.12
Concepts of
aid have been confined within a straitjacket.
Its structures were defined in the Paris Declaration on Aid
Effectiveness (2005), which was drawn up by the OECD, then imposed on the
beneficiaries. The general
conditionality, alignment with the principles of liberal globalization, is
omnipresent. Sometimes it is explicit:
promoting liberalization, opening the markets, becoming "attractive"
to private foreign investment. Sometimes
it is indirect: respecting the rules of the WTC. A country that refuses to subscribe to this
strategy - which has been unilaterally defined by the North (the Triad) - loses
its right to be eligible for aid. So
that the Declaration of Paris is a step back - and not an advance - in
comparison with the practices of the "development decades," the 1960s
and 1970s, when the principle of free choice by the countries of the South to
follow their own system and economic and social policies was recognized.
In these
conditions, aid policies and their apparent, immediate objectives cannot be
separated from imperialism's geopolitical strategies. For the different regions in the world do not
have the same functions in the globalized liberal system. It is not enough to mention their common
denominator (liberalization of trade, opening to financial markets, privatizations).
Sub-Saharan
Africa is very well integrated into this global system, and in no way
"marginalized" as it is claimed, unfortunately all too often without
thinking. Its foreign trade represents
45 percent of its Gross National Product, compared to 30 percent for Asia and
Latin America and 15 percent for each of the regions constituting the
Triad. Africa is thus quantitatively
"more" and not "less" integrated, but in a different way.13
The
geo-economy of the region depends on two production systems that determine its
structures and define its place in the global system:
1.
the export of "tropical" agricultural
products: coffee, cocoa, cotton, peanuts, fruits, oil palm, etc.; and
2.
hydrocarbons and minerals: copper, gold, rare metals,
diamonds, etc.
The former
are the means of "survival" (apart from food for the auto-consumption
of peasants), which finance the transplanting of the State onto the local
economy and, through public expenditure, the reproduction of the "middle
classes." This kind of production
is of more interest to the local governing classes than to the dominant
economies; in contrast, what interests the latter is the products of natural
resources of the continent. Today it is
hydrocarbons and rare minerals. Tomorrow
it will be the reserves for developing agrofuels, the sun (when long-distance
transport of solar electricity becomes feasible, within a few decades), water
(when its direct or indirect "export" becomes possible).
The race to
convert rural areas for the expansion of agrofuels is under way in Latin
America. In this field, Africa has
tremendous possibilities. Madagascar has
started the movement and already conceded large areas in the west of the country. The implementation of the Congolese Rural
Code in 2008, inspired by Belgian aid and the FAO, will no doubt enable
agribusiness to take over agricultural land on a massive scale to
"exploit" it, just as the Mining Code has already enabled the pillage
of the mineral resources of this former colony.
"Useless" peasants will pay for it, and increasing destitution
that awaits them will perhaps attract future humanitarian assistance and
"aid" programs to reduce poverty!
In the 1970s I learnt about an old colonial dream for the Sahel, which
was to expel the population (useless Sahelians) in favor of extensive,
Texas-style ranches raising livestock for exportation.
The new
phase of history that has opened is marked by the sharpening of conflicts for
access to the natural resources of the planet.
The Triad intends to reserve for itself the exclusive access to this
"useful" Africa (that of natural resource reserves) and to prevent
such access by the "emerging countries" whose needs in this respect
are already great and likely to increase.
Guaranteeing exclusive access means political control and reducing
African countries to the status of "client states."
It is not
therefore wrong to consider that the aim of aid is to "corrupt" the
governing classes. Apart from the
financial appropriations (which, alas, are well known and for which we are led
to believe that the donors are in no way responsible), aid has become
"indispensable" as it is an important source of financing budgets and
fulfils a political function. It thus
becomes necessary to think of aid as being permanent and not prepare for its
elimination through a serious development effort. Hence it is important that it is not reserved
exclusively and wholly for the classes in power, for the
"government." It must also
give stakes to "oppositions" that are capable of succeeding them. The so-called civil society and certain
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have a role to play here. The aid in question, if it is to be really
effective politically, must also help to maintain the entry of peasants into
this global system, this entry bringing another source of revenue for the
State. The aid must also be concerned
with progress in "modernizing" export crops.
Right-wing
criticism of aid is based on the notion that it is for the countries concerned
to take action to liberate themselves from this dependence by opening up still
more to foreign capital. This was the
substance of Sarkozy's speech at Dakar and Obama's at Accra. This oratorical appeal avoids the real
question. For aid, an integral part of
the imperialist strategy, in fact seeks to marginalize the peoples of Africa
who are useless and troublesome, the better to continue their pillage of
African resources!
The
critique made by the "do-gooder" left, which is that of many NGOs,
accepts that the "donors" will honor their pledges. It limits itself to pointless talk about
"absorption capacity," "performance," "good
governance," promoted by "civil society." It calls for "more" and
"better" aid! Radical
critique, on the contrary, supports autonomous development. One can imagine that aid in this context
would derive from peoples' international solidarity, confronting (and against)
the cosmopolitanism of capitalism.
12 Samir Amin, "Aid,
for What Development?" (in a book published in English by Fahamu,
forthcoming in 2009)
13 Samir Amin, "Is
Africa Really Marginalized?" in, Helen Lauer (ed), History and Philosophy of
Sciences for African Undergraduates, Ibadan: Hope Pub, 2003.
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