Report details corruption, health and social ill facing Africa
In Zimbabwe, where coffin-makers can’t keep pace with AIDS deaths, thieves rip metal from irrigation pumps to mold handles for caskets.
On major trade routes in West Africa, checkpoints manned by dubious tax-collecting officials add hundreds of dollars to the cost of trucking goods.
They are but two examples cited in a report released Friday that challenges developed nations to help Africa by upping annual aid by $25 billion and forgiving most of its foreign debt.
The 453-page report was the result of a year’s work by the 17-member Commission for Africa, which was created by British Prime Minister Tony Blair in hopes of swaying G-8 nations at a July summit, where Africa’s future tops the agenda. The commission and its report are noteworthy for several reasons. Most commission members are Africans with firsthand experience in the continent’s problems.
The report offers detailed illustrations of the corruption, health problems and social ills plaguing Africa. It blames Africans as much as colonial rule and unfulfilled promises from rich countries for the continent’s woes.
“The rich world is falling behind on its pledges to the poor,” commission members said, adding: “But what is clear is that if Africa does not create the right conditions for development … any amount of outside support will fail.”
Among other things, it says African leaders must relinquish the heavy-handed control most still exercise and allow parliaments, the media, labor unions and civic groups to thrive. It calls for eliminating petty obstacles to trade and investment, such as the checkpoints that litter the continent’s highways and customs regulations that strand goods at African ports for months.
Wealthy nations must do their share by creating a sort of Marshall Plan for Africa, it said. “The Marshall Plan worked. We should remember that,” commissioners said, noting the recommendation that nations ultimately commit 0.7 percent of their national income to Africa is less than the 1 percent committed by the United States to rebuild Europe.
The report says developed countries can stem African corruption by returning stolen money to African countries; requiring foreign banks to monitor suspiciously large deposits, and cracking down on foreign companies that bribe African officials.
The report also focuses on AIDS, noting tangential problems posed by the disease, such as the Zimbabwean farmers whose crops suffered due to broken irrigation pumps. Funding for AIDS programs must increase by $10 billion a year, the commission said, and donor nations must ensure that differences over such things as abstinence versus condom usage do not slow the delivery of aid.