Sunday, July 10, 2005

Autonomy and Accountability

The Guardian's Larry Elliott comments on the G8 aid deal:
In a sense, the most encouraging part of the Gleneagles deal was not the debt relief package (which will be worth around $1.5bn) or the new aid money (worth perhaps an extra $20bn over and above what was already in the pipeline) but the tacit acceptance that the conditions imposed on African countries in the past have been both onerous and counterproductive.

"It is up to developing countries themselves and their governments to take the lead on development. They need to decide, plan and sequence their economic policies to fit with their own development strategies, for which they should be accountable to all their people." This was an important concession by the G8 and they should use their voting power at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to ensure that it translates into action on the ground in individual African countries. The one condition that should be put on aid and debt relief is that national governments should report to their own populations each year on exactly how the money has been spent.

Amen to that - and this is why debt relief was such an important piece of the deal.

Aid itself is difficult to justify domestically without some strings being attached - as important as the goals seem now, they're inevitably subject to competing domestic pressures which make it impossible to guarantee the future terms of aid. But once the debt is gone, it's gone, and the added financial capacity will allow African states to better borrow to meet their own needs in the future.

And that means both more power in local decision-making, and better accountability for those decisions.

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