Reality of Aid: Africa edition 2003/4

Independent assessment of the nature and performance of aid to Africa

Published by: African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) 2004

As part of the ‘The Reality of Aid’ series (an independent assessment of the nature and performance of development aid) this report examines the situation on the African continent.

It uses a rights based approach to development, which accepts development as a human right and therefore questions the actions of governments and IFIs that deny people opportunities to develop. Rather than a mere focus on GDP growth rates, the human rights centred approach gives equal weight to issues of equity and access to basic social services for the majority of the people as fitting priorities for governments and donors for which they must aim. The study highlights that:

• Some African governments fail to place the fulfilment of their people's human rights-civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights-at the centre of their development agendas
• The impact of corruption on people's economic and social rights is devastating; and multinational corporations often play an insidious role in Africa's corruption game
• Programmes of the IFIs are can violate people's economic and social rights through the conditionalities they impose
• The moral high ground from which the World Bank and the IMF preach good governance to African governments should be questioned considering the lack of transparency in their own governance structures and their policies that in many instances have worsened poverty in developing countries.