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and constructed by the colonial powers, has deteriorated badly,
leading many development experts to the disheartening realization
that "Africa is less developed now than it was twenty years ago," as
one official from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund puts it.
This mind-boggling scenario has taken shape despite massive
outlays of foreign aid. World Bank disbursements to Africa doubled
between 1979 and 1983, and aid from the U.N. Development Pro–
gram quadrupled between 1972 and 1981. Similar exponential in–
creases were typical among a host of other multilateral agencies, in–
cluding the Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health
Organization, UNICEF, and others. Official aid from the U.S (not
counting nonprofit agencies) came to 340 million dollars in 1984,
and tripled to 935 million dollars by April 1985. Estimates of total
worldwide foreign aid to Africa (from both official and nonprofit
agencies) have ranged between sixty and eighty
billion
dollars an–
nually over the past decade.
On the surface, these data reflect a disturbing trend, namely as
foreign aid increased, internal development in Africa declined.
What happened? In part, the fault lay in an incoherent, ill-conceived
aid process. Funding generally went toward narrowly defined, single
shot projects that had no impact in upgrading local manpower skills
or generating more prosperity at the grass roots level. Moreover,
there was no coordination among aid projects, and few, if any,
methods for long-term follow up or evaluation. Often, aid was used
for projects that were totally incompatible with existing infrastruc–
ture and development needs - resulting in modern communications
satellites towering over regions without safe water, or hydroelectric
dams built with no manpower to maintain them and no electric utili–
ty network linked to the new generator.
Even so, foreign aid flows at the recipient's, not the donor's, re–
quest. While an aid agency may exert leverage in shaping a project
requested by a recipient nation, it cannot foist a predefined aid
package on a country that is requesting aid for something else. No
rhetorical magician can disguise the fact that Africa's tragic plight is
primarily due to irresponsible policies enacted by the African states
themselves. Such policies resulted in a facade of development while
ignoring, and often directly obstructing, the seeds of genuine pros–
perity. Indeed, while the signs of oncoming disaster loomed ever
larger, the international diplomatic community by and large re–
mained silent, mostly due to mistaken vanity, fear of being judged
insensitive to Africa's colonial past, or, worse, racist, gagged other-
