African Update interview with Robert Calderisi

Robert Calderisi spent three decades working on international development, most of it with the World Bank where he held several senior positions. From 1997 to 2000, he was the Bank’s international spokesperson on Africa and he has lived in both Tanzania and the Ivory Coast.

Mr. Calderisi, who now works as a writer and consultant, has written an exceptional new book called The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working (Palgrave) which aims to move the discussion of African development beyond the finger-pointing stage and address what’s really wrong with the continent, learn from past mistakes, and make real progress for the future.

African Update recently talked to Mr. Calderisi about the current situation in Africa and what needs to be done in order to see lasting improvements on the continent. The interview appears below:

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African Update - You make it clear in your book that the foreign aid given to sub-Saharan Africa over the last forty years has been virtually useless, and the numbers seem to confirm your point—Africa is poorer now than it was in 1960 despite the fact that it has received some $600 billion in aid since then. How can this happen?

Robert Calderisi - It happened through a series of fashions, good intentions, and oversights that now seem almost natural to those directly involved. It seemed obvious that one should support State industries when private capital wasn’t flowing to Africa because of perceived “market imperfections.” It appeared honorable to allow governments to make mistakes as they struggled to learn what government was really about. It was only human to overlook the cupidity of African ministers and officials, new as they were to modern life and just this side of poverty themselves. And everyone recognized that it would take time for aid to have the desired effects. These mistakes were natural and perhaps necessary. I suggest that it is now time to learn from these mistakes and manage aid very differently.

AU - Some of your suggestions to turn the situation around include promoting democracy and improving transparency in government, providing direct support to health, education, and infrastructure projects instead of to governments and, perhaps somewhat controversially, cutting direct aid to African countries altogether. This way of thinking seems to be in line with another former World Bank official William Easterly who, in his recent book The White Man’s Burden, suggests that funding narrowly focused and more attainable projects is the way to go. But, like Easterly, your conclusions seem to directly oppose those of Jeffrey Sachs and the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals. What do you think of Sachs’ proposals on how to end extreme poverty, particularly as it relates to Africa?

RC - Mr. Easterly approaches the subject from an economist’s point of view; my suggestions are based on direct operational experience. It is not project-specific aid that will cure the failures of the past. It is working with governments that have proven they can be trusted and providing them with aid in a variety of forms that should prove more promising. For less committed countries, tighter political and project conditions may be the answer, but this approach is light-years away from the ideal; if I have offered it as an alternative, it is because I believe we should still experiment with new solutions, instead of giving up the search for a cure to cancer.

I admire Professor Sachs’s energy, ideas and commitment to helping Africa. But I part ways with him on his obsession with higher aid targets. To my knowledge, he has never worked on an aid project in Africa. There is no reference in his book The End of Poverty to the unpleasant side effects of aid. And, in my view, he treats issues of bad government too lightly. Having said that, my recommendations converge with two proposals he has made over the years: I suggest that “good performers” should get a quantum increase in aid, and I agree with him that more aid should be devoted to general purposes (agricultural research, disease control, regional infrastructure) rather than country-specific ones.

AU - As you engagingly write about in your book, you were closely involved with the World Bank’s Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline project. As you know, Chad’s president Idriss Deby recently pushed through changes to the law that governs the spending of the pipeline’s revenue eliminating the Future Generations Fund and allowing for much of the money that was suppose to be used exclusively for health, education, agriculture and infrastructure purposes to be used instead for military spending. How disheartening has this been for you to see these changes happen?

RC - I was certainly dismayed but not surprised. Those events confirm that a tougher – rather than more “understanding” – approach to aid is necessary with governments that flout Western values or, as in the case of Chad, had only a short record of keeping their promises or serving the public interest. I now believe the World Bank should have made it explicit in the Pipeline legal agreements that other donors and the oil companies themselves would take punitive action if the government violated the revenue formula. They still can, and I hope they will – until the Chadians recover their senses.

AU - You mention the funding of the Mufindi pulp and paper project in Tanzania as an example of a poor investment made by the World Bank in Africa. Did this sort of poor funding happen often while you were with the Bank?

RC - Mufindi – and the Morogoro shoe factory – were extreme examples of “big ideas” gone sour. I do not believe there were many others on that scale. But there were certainly many smaller, less visible, but cumulatively damaging cases where “heroic” assumptions and the need to “move” large aid budgets resulted in waste or merely ephemeral success.

AU - In the book you write a lot about the differences in worldview between much of Africa’s governmental elite and most Western governments. One particularly illuminating point that you make is that African government leaders often consider poverty to be as natural as the wind or the rain and not something that they have any control over. How big of a role does this way of thinking among African government leaders play in the increasing poverty of the continent?

RC - I may be wrong, but I think it has been fundamental. This clash of values has been obvious in the way aid donors and recipients in Africa have “talked past” each other over the years.

AU - You write about the importance of democracy, transparency, and good government in general for Africa’s future development but there have been many worrying developments in recent months: Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni first, making changes to the constitution so that he could stand for election again, and then throwing his main opponent in jail on trumped up charges before the election. Also, there’s been the breakdown of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change and the recent crackdown against an opposition party by Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi, as well as Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo’s rumored, ‘backroom’ attempt to change his own country’s constitution so that he can stand for yet another election. What must be done to prevent a further slide away from democracy?

RC - In my view, the West can support African democrats and pressure groups financially and morally (through write-in campaigns and commercial boycotts) and by taking the gasoline out of the dictators’ tanks (i.e., closing Swiss and British havens for stolen money and curbing weapons sales). We also need to keep a sense of proportion. I am sorry that President Museveni ran for anther term in office, but he did keep his promise to introduce multiparty elections and his margin of victory (59%) was more credible than that of most African heads of state (90% and above). It is also encouraging that the Ugandan courts countered his political mischief by releasing the opposition leader. President Obasanjo in Nigeria should also step down. Alas, his apparent belief that no one else can do a reasonable job is a persistent feature of African politics.

AU - I’ve often been amazed at the resourcefulness and perseverance of Africans despite the hardships and hurdles thrown at them by their own governments who too often don’t care about them at all. Your book is filled with stories of persistent Africans—I was particularly struck by the woman selling fried bananas in Abidjan and the man who made millions selling West African yams by mail to the United States—which are quite heartening for anyone who cares about Africa. In your view will Africans soon be able to throw off the shackles of economic constriction and corruption placed on them by their own governments and use their abilities and resourcefulness to succeed in free and open societies or is this something that is still a long way off?

RC - I am not very hopeful about the next ten years – especially if the West continues to pamper the arrogance of African leaders. Just a month ago, the Kenyan Minister of Security justified a raid on the offices of a major newspaper and television with the words: “If you rattle a snake, you should expect to be bitten.” But Africans are beginning to put their foot down and the pace of change may be faster than I assume. In late 2005, Kenyans refused to approve a constitution which would have given their president greater power; Ethiopians protested against the questionable results of their national elections; and Liberians preferred to trust a 67 year old grandmother as their head of state rather than a flashy young soccer star. Africans will seize the opportunities they are given, and create their own opportunities as well.

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