Ending aid dependence

187 Pages·2008·1.31 MB·English

by  Tandon

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Published 2008 by Fahamu – Networks for Social Justice
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First published 2008
Second edition 2008

Copyright © Yash Tandon 2008

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-906387-32-7 ebook
ISBN: 978-1-906387-31-0 paperback, 2nd edition

Foreword
Benjamin W. Mkapa
President of Tanzania 1995 – 2005

The primary and long-term objective of this monograph is to initiate a debate on
development aid, and to lay out a do-able strategy for ending aid dependence.
An exit strategy from aid dependence requires a radical shift both in the mindset
and in the development strategy of countries dependent on aid, and a deeper and
direct involvement of people in their own development. It also requires a radical
and fundamental restructuring of the institutional aid architecture at the global
level.
The first edition of the book was published just before the high level meeting
in September 2008 in Accra organised by the OECD and the World Bank. The
aim then was to caution the developing countries against endorsing the Accra
Action Agenda (AAA), which was based on the OECD’s Paris Declaration on
Aid Effectiveness (PDAE). The PDAE is built on five principles that on first
sight look benign. However, on closer analysis, it turns out to be a formula for
subjecting aid recipients to a discipline of collective control by the donors right
down to the village level, especially in the poorer and more vulnerable countries
in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. However, since no serious
discussion on the PDAE had taken place in the South, it was not surprising that
the AAA was endorsed in Accra by the generally low-level official delegations
from the South and several mostly North-dominated intergovernmental
organisations. Conspicuously absent, for example, was the African Union. There
are fundamental contradictions between the AAA-endorsed Paris Declaration on
Aid Effectiveness (PDAE) and the South Centre’s strategy on Aid Exit (SCAE).
A simple schema (Table 1) at the end of this Foreword illustrates these
differences.
The question is: how do we move forward from here? Making aid ‘effective’
will only serve to perpetuate aid dependence. There has to be a strategy for
ending aid dependence. This book suggests for debate and further discussion a
seven-step strategy for ending aid dependence. The first step is the most