Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Africa’s Story of Development and Debt Relief

At a packed conference hall in Arusha, Tanzania, a Ugandan journalist, AndrewMwenda

poses what he expects to be a thought-provoking but rhetorical question. The audience,
notable for both its diversity and its international stature - corroborated by the presence of
primatolagist Jane Goodall sitting next to Google's Sergey Brin - listen intently to Mwenda’s
controversial and surprising story. Devout in his belief that foreign aid and debt cancellation
undermine Africa’s development and should be discontinued, he asks, ‘Can you give me a
single example of one country that was developed with aid? Just give me one example.’
From the audience comes an unexpected reply: ‘Bullocks!’

Famed U2 rocker-cum-philanthropist, Bono emerges noticeably frustrated; He answers

that Ireland in the days of the potato famine is an example that Mwenda has failed to note.
Bono would later lament, ‘You'd think somebody farted in here when the words “debt relief”
came up…Well, I’ll tell you that 20 million children in Africa are going to school today as a
direct result of debt relief.”

Referring to the EU aid used to increase investment in Ireland’s education system he

notes that, ‘the reason Ireland now has one of the hottest economies in the world and gets
all this direct investment from companies like Google and Intel is that they realized Ireland
had an extremely well-educated population.’ Bono has become one of the most famous and
outspoken promoters of debt relief and financial aid to poor countries, particularly in Africa.
Certainly, he is accustomed to resistance from obstinate states backtracking on pledges, he
is even accustomed to resistance from powerful financial organisations, including the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but rarely has he been snubbed by those he
hopes to help—individual Africans.

The venue for this debate is the TED Global Conference, a biennial event dedicated to
‘spreading ideas’ in Technology, Entertainment and Design, with a focus on International
Development. Bono and his charitable organisation DATA (Debt Aids Trade Africa) were
partly the inspiration for this year’s spotlight on Africa. Yet, the debate emerging from the
TED Global forum, represents a growing drift in how the story of Africa is being told, one
that does not necessarily correspond to Bono’s finite list of villains: debt, poverty and AIDS.
Last year when NBC anchor Brian Williams travelled to Africa under Bono’s watchful-eye he
heralded Bono as, ‘[leveraging] his own name to open doors, raise money and heal what
ails an entire continent.’ But as experts outside the media spotlight are increasingly eager to
highlight, what ‘ails’ the continent is not as simple as African debt.

Just 5 years ago, the debt relief dispute rang hollow. Those demanding debt relief,
including Bono, did so on ethical grounds difficult to dispute. With the world’s poorest
countries paying $100 million dollars each day in debt repayments, cancellation could mean
the difference between life and death to the 41% of Africans who live on less than a Euro a
day. Campaigners of debt relief like the European Network on Debt and Development
(Eurodad), have challenged the legality of many of these loans, referring to them as
illegitimate debts. This contention implicates poor lending practices, leaving responsibility
for the debt shared between the debtor and the creditor. Paraguay made this argument in
2005, stating that it had no legal obligation to repay its loans on the grounds that the loans
granted in the late 80s to Gustavo Gramont Berres, were made with the bank’s full
knowledge that he had no legal right to request such loans. Similar cases of allegedly
corrupt and fraudulent lending practices are cited across the developing world.

Champions of dept relief like Bono, and organisations like Eurodad, have summarised the
case for debt relief as both a legal and a moral imperative, but as the TED Global
Conference is indicating, the developing world has a batch of home-grown champions like
Mwenda who argue for investment, grass-roots entrepreneurship, and African democratic
accountability—not charity from richer nations. This message is slowly finding support in the
West, including New York University economics professor William Easterly, a former
research economist at the World Bank, and author of the best-selling book ‘The White Man’s
Burden.’ He dramatically paints debt-relief activists like Bono as well-meaning villains when
telling his version of Africa’s story; Easterly’s heroes are uniquely African. He explains in a
recent Wall Street Journal article, that African entrepreneurs have ‘shown what they are
capable of…for example, [launching] the world’s fastest growing cell phone industry.’ As for
Bono, Easterly jokes that he ‘is a much better musician than economist.’ Ultimately the
battle to tell Africa’s story is just beginning and as African voices like Mwenda’s find
receptive audiences in the West, Bono may soon find that this is no longer his story to tell.