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Obama on Governance and Corruption in Africa: A message to aid donors as well?
By Kaufmann | July 11, 2009 6 Comments »
An editorial and an article in the New York Times (NYT) a month ago raised eyebrows amond aid donors because of the criticism about corruption in some African countries, and the donor responsibility about it. Official aid agencies may be used to get such criticisms from the conservative media, like Fox News or the Wall Street Journal — but not from the bastion of liberal media, the NYT. Around the same time, Michela Wrong´s recently launched book, ¨It is Our Time to Eat¨, about corruption and aid in Kenya, shed light on the current challenge of governance and corruption from a very personal perspective…
None of these developments pleased bureaucracies in a number of prominent donor aid institutions. Internal rumblings could be heard beyond their walls, and the customary call for more ´balance´ and ´perspective´ were taking place (read: do not highlight the political sensitive issues of governance and corruption; instead the traditional technocratic approach channelling funds to governments with little selectivity ought to continue).
But not all is that well, or homogenous, in such bureaucracies and among other donors, including privates. My sense in recent times has been that the era of political correctedness, where among many official circles it was unwelcomed to seriously focus on these problems, may be coming to an end. Important circles may now starting to ponder whether all is as well as the spin dictated, as a number of influential media articles and books were coming out. The aid industry could not go on pretendong that it was business as usual, underplaying and misunderstanding the importance of governance and corruption.
Now Obama has gone to Africa, first time as President. He has chosen to visit Ghana, a country exhibiting sustained progress on governance. He has chosen not to visit either Nigeria, by far the most populous country in the continent, or Kenya, the birthplace of his father. Both countries may be very prominent in Africa, yet have been plagued by poor governance and corruption.
As telling as Obama’s choice of country to visit (and to bypass) are his explicit messages in his statements and speeches during this trip (here, and particularly here, in his speech before the parliament in Accra). The explicit messages are on both governance (which he has labelled as the key driver of development), and corruption. That President Obama has minced now words on these issues in an age of misguided political correctness in official circles carry particular weight, given his background and ancestry, not to speak about his position and reputation.
However implicit, in due course the message from Obama during his current trip to Africa may also be properly interpreted as a wake-up call to the aid industry, which (with the exception of a few donors) has tended to depict a glossy and politically correct picture of what is transpiring in African governments, thereby masking a huge variation in governance performance across Africa, and, particularly in recent years, downplaying the priority of good governance and anticorruption for development.
Topics: Aid Effectiveness, Corruption, Measurement Frontiers, Regulation & Security, Rule of Law | | 6 Comments
July 11th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
[...] Here is the original: Obama on Governance and Corruption in Africa: A message to aid donors as well? [...]
July 17th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Yet again we see President Obama carefully wading the waters of corruption both domestic and now foreign. He still seems apprehensive as to how to handle corruption in the government arena. His handling of the Somalia situation, while seemingly a success, was the first indication to me that Obama would rather choose ambivalent diplomacy rather than direct, explicit action against corruption, exploitation, and violence in Africa.
Surprisingly, Obama could afford to take a page out of Bush’s African foreign affairs book. Bush successfully managed to address a number of health crises in Africa during his tenure. I think the best the US can achieve as far assisting African nations is merely in a financial and medical manner and continue to hope the UN actually fulfills its international obligations.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:23 am
He should visit Asia. Many countries here suffer on Bad Governance and Corruption.
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October 15th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
The fact that Mr. Obama spoke out against corruption while calling for good governance is not good enough.One of the best ways to solve African problems is to help enforce democracy on the continent. By embracing some African dictators as he did during the last UN Summit the American president is preaching one thing and doing exactly the contrary. If Obama administration could , for example, put pressure on France and EU to encourage free and fair elections in Africa, and a more responsible ruling class characterized is a better way to integrity and efficiency, effectiveness, equality and responsiveness in government.
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
The governance and corruption that is going on in Africa can affect all countries and yet there are people that can help and change Africa for the better but does not do it. Obama is making a change by helping our country’s corruption as well as others too. Obama is leading us to success and helping develop a more stable country in the US as well as in Africa.
June 28th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
[...] Obama on Governance and Corruption: A message to aid donors as well? from The Kaufman Governance Post – asks what role donors play in corruption when giving. [...]