Africans Speak Out

INTRODUCTION

In her new book, Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo claims that Africans don't believe aid is helping to attack poverty on the continent. Moyo makes important points in her book about the need for greater trade and investment in Africa, which we at ONE support. We also agree with her calls for greater accountability and transparency in how aid is delivered. But when Moyo says aid has never helped Africans, that it doesn't get to the people in need and it should be cut off, she is simply wrong. From where I sit in Abuja, I see aid helping African leaders to make progress against extreme poverty.

If you really want to know what Africans - leaders, policy makers and aid beneficiaries -- think about aid and what many Africans working on the ground to improve the lives of poor people think about Ms. Moyo's prescriptions, read these comments.

 Edith Jibunoh, Africa Outreach Manager, ONE

 Comments on Dead Aid:

 Dr. Alex Coutinho, Executive Director, Infectious Disease Institute, Uganda

"In the area of HIV the world has seen a remarkable partnership between nations and individuals that has saved 3 million lives and prevented 10 million orphans. The irresponsible suggestion by Ms. Moyo that western aid be stopped in 5 years would result in death on a genocidal scale. Moyo should come back to the real Africa and see what smart aid can achieve."

Dr. Nii Akwei Addo, National AIDS Control Program; Global Fund recipient, Ghana

"Aid in itself is not evil or bad... Without the Global Fund, comprehensive targeted care for people living with HIV and AIDS would have been impossible in sub Saharan Africa, Ghana inclusive. What is needed is a clear definition of performance and outcomes tightly linked to inflows. You may call them strings but strings in the right directions."

Martin Eson-Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer, Millennium Development Authority (MiDA - Ghana's Implementing Agency for the MCC)

 "The Millennium Challenge Program is a very sensible and laudable initiative and Ghana is fortunate to have been eligible for the grant on the basis of her sound policy performance. The competitive nature of the Program and the clear demand for transparency, fiscal accountability and measurable outcomes enhance my appreciation for the Program and it will be a real shame if the shortcomings of the past must continue to haunt people like Moyo and induce her to advise African Nations to take themselves out of these benefits.  

The Government of Ghana is supportive of the Programme and committed to doing everything possible for our country to remain eligible by reinforcing good governance, ensuring economic freedom and investing in the people. These are the positive gains from aid and many countries are currently aspiring to achieve the same.

Moyo's prescription is rather sad indeed and must be jettisoned by the many well meaning leaders of the new Africa. We all can't be stupid."

Ernest Ekong, National Clinical Coordinator, Harvard PEPFAR, Nigeria.

"Through the PEPFAR program, in Nigeria for instance, more than 200,000 HIV infected persons have received treatment in the last 4 years, the systems have been improved, infrastructure developed and capacity built. More than 400,000 people here received care and support. A lot more than 5 million infections have been prevented...cutting off funding to Africa would mean sentencing Africa to scourges and situations that breed more poverty ignorance and disease."

Professor Nana K. Poku, Senior Advisor to EU Missions - Africa, John Ferguson Professor of African Studies, University of Bradford (UK)

 "I would fundamentally disagree with the basic premise of Moyo's hypothesis. Ensuring aid effectiveness is a constant struggle in overcoming underdevelopment, but aid flow itself is a vital ingredient. The big challenge is to find ways of increasing the quality and quantity of the sort of aid that is most needed by communities and societies across the developing world."

Josephine Forson, CEO, Tekura Enterprise Ltd., Ghana

We in Tekura see US aid to Ghana a "Live Aid."  TEKURA has been a beneficiary of aid programs in Ghana including the AGOA and US ADF.  Since the interventions, we have... been able to showcase our products on a more sustainable basis...[seen] improvement in the lives of artisans as incomes of artisans have increased since they are able to earn more income.  There has been reduction in poverty...Artisans are able to send their children to school...Young men who otherwise would have been running around now have a relatively steady vocation at Tekura...Perhaps what must be done is that aid must be properly negotiated and properly managed to ensure that the benefits get to the targeted group or communities.

Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija, MD, MSc Co-founder and Executive Director of the Alakija Foundation, an organization dedicated to the elimination of global poverty.

"We have literally seen those who were just months previously dying of AIDS now living productive lives with HIV. Education has been another area, in which the targeted focus on the education of the girl child has begun to show clear dividends in the area of family and community transformation. To suggest the cessation of aid to many of these would be akin to a death sentence and a condemnation to death row. Before one prescribes death to multitudes, I would recommend that we ask those Africans on the forefront of extreme poverty and disease - do you choose life or death...

To live or not to live - this is the question? I for one would not want to be held accountable for the millions of lives that would be at stake if aid to Africa was halted."

African leaders on the role of aid

President Kagame of Rwanda, February 2008:

"In the field of health, immunization coverage has risen to 95 percent. Thanks to American support and partnership, thousands of Rwandan children and mothers are alive and have hope because of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program. Malaria has almost been eliminated in our country due in large part to the President's Malaria Initiative."

President Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia:

February 2008: "Mr. President, Mrs. Bush, fellow Liberians, we have been pleased that with the support of the United States government to our education rebuilding process, we can now say that we're beginning to see the signs of progress ... They've been supported through the United States Agency for International Development, the President's Africa Education Initiative. Liberia currently receives assistance for adult learners, primary school students, school infrastructure, teacher training, the accelerated learning program and improvement of higher education.  Thank you for being here with us, and thank you for all that you do, for helping us to rebuild our educational system."

President Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia:

October 2008: "The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, has contributed to putting over 1.7 million people on life-saving antiretroviral treatment and prevented nearly 200,000 infant infections. The President's Malaria Initiative has already reached over 25 million people with prevention or treatment services in its first two years.

Yes, aid continues as strong work. Sometimes, we believe, unappreciated in Washington in fighting poverty. U.S. aid programs helped immunize over 3 million children every year. Oral rehydration programs have saved tens of millions of lives around the world, and U.S. aid provides strong support to micro-finance, education, energy, and other programs around the world."

President Kikwete of Tanzania, February 2008:

"...maybe let me just say about PEPFAR. Let me just make an appeal: Let PEPFAR continue. This is a passionate appeal from us. It has been quite useful, as I was saying in my speech. There would have been so many orphans to date had it not been for PEPFAR, the care and treatment -- so many parents now who have been infected can live. And some of them can live as many years as possible, as long as they adhere to the ABCs of the person infected with HIV living on ARVs. "

President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana, September 2008:

"...A typical example is the Millennium Challenge Accounts by which Ghana received, or is receiving, $547 million to modernize and commercialize agriculture. You would appreciate the importance of this gesture from the United States when you know that about 60 percent of the Ghana population is rural and depends on agriculture.

So far much of our agriculture is subsistence, meaning farmers just scratch to feed themselves. But with the advent of the Millennium Challenge Accounts, we want to move the farmers on to more scientific and technological agriculture, and thereby empower them more and make agriculture worth pursuing for the youth.

We are suffering as an economy adrift, very serious drift of the youth from the rural parts to the urban areas, which have not been planned to accommodate the drifts. And so now in our streets in the big towns you have street children. We believe the success of the Millennium Challenge Account will help stem all this anti-social developments.

If you look at the malaria support from the United States, our country in the old times was dubbed the white man's grave. It was malaria infested and the Europeans who first came along our coasts just didn't last. This disease continues to plague much of Africa and perhaps is the biggest killer -- even bigger than HIV/AIDS -- of our people on the continent. The hefty support we are getting from the United States and under your watch is very welcome and we hope to take it even further, again employing technologies and more scientific research."

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Minister of Health, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,  October 2008:

"In Ethiopia, for instance, three years ago we only had 900 people on free treatment, although we had around 8,000 in pain. From that 900 in free treatment, as I speak now we have more than 160,000 on free treatment. And that's why I said, you know, these programs - PRF, PMI - are creating hopes to millions in Ethiopia."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Forward: DATA Report 2008

"What is increasingly clear is that when development partners truly work together, they can empower African citizens in their task of holding their governments accountable. They can help African education ministers and NGOs get their children into school and fed, they can get those who need them into health clinics to receive the life-saving AIDS drugs and deliver the life-protecting anti-malarial bed nets into the hands of the mothers and children who need them most. For every tragedy that is Zimbabwe or Sudan or DRC, there are more than twice as many more positive African stories to tell - like Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana, Benin or Mali.

We want to achieve that success not through a handout, but through hard work, persistence, creativity and a true partnership with the developed world. We're not there yet, but we can get there if the West keeps the commitments it made, with such fanfare, at Gleneagles, and if African leaders keep their promises to their citizens too."