Foreign aid: No panacea to nation’s aspirations
REATING an upper middle-income economy by 2030 cannot be attained if Zimbabweans do not realise that foreign aid is not the solution to the country’s developmental aspirations.
While we cannot divorce ourselves from the global financial architecture, continuously knocking on the doors of our traditional Western development partners where doors are not opened is unacceptable.
It is high time we look inwards and mobilise our own human capital and natural resources, and use them effectively for the development of our beloved country.
Countries like China, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates ( UAE) are what they are because they looked inwards. They used their people and natural resources to spur development.
Development partners, donors and foreign direct investment ( FDI) should not be used as the primary source to drive Zimbabwe towards Vision 2030, but should be used to augment or support our home grown development programmes.
Only the people of Zimbabwe, not development assistance, aid or freebies, can spur our aspired economic growth and social transformation targets under Vision 2030.
We should set aside our petty differences, unite as a nation under a common shared vision, and be prepared to go into the trenches and sweat for the development of our great country, for the benefit of current and future generations.
CBy now it should be clear that the “Zimbabwe we want”cannot be created by extending begging bowls to multilateral development partners and donors.
Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank ( WB)
and International Monetary Fund ( IMF) have often come up with development assistance packages that are not tailored to suit our developmental needs.
WB and IMF prescribed the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme ( ESAP) for Zimbabwe in the early 1990s and it created mammoth economic problems for the country and inflicted a lot of pain and suffering on ordinary people.
In following WB and IMF advice, Zimbabwe became rapidly de-industrialised and unemployment grew apace, causing untold suffering for ordinary Zimbabweans.
This led to ESAP being coined to mean“Economic Suffering for African People”.
Not much development aid has been forthcoming from the IMF, despite numerous team visits to Zimbabwe as part of the Staff Monitored Programme ( SMP),
which is basically an informal arrangement between Government and IMF to monitor the implementation of key economic programmes in the country.
New conditions are placed by IMF and WB making our efforts to chase after foreign development aid a wild goose chase. Western development partners have not made commitments to extend new credit lines or offer debt relief thus keeping us in a perpetual debt trap.
Development aid, as African history shows, has not always worked in our best interests as most deals are tilted in favour of development partners or donors, reinforcing underlying unequal or uneven power balances between developed and developing countries. International (read Western) mainstream media creates the impression that Western countries come to Africa with “bags of money” meant to save poor Africans by white philanthropists.
Some (not all) hopeless non-governmental organisations ( NGO), major players in the development aid discourse, do not have good intentions in Africa. Their aid comes with political motives while window dressed as development aid, when, in fact, the agenda is a continuation of imperialist political manoeuvres meant to destabilise African countries and perpetuate the colonial legacy of donor-recipient subservient status quo.
If development aid is taken wholesale, because we are desperate for funding, our economic aspirations under Vision 2030 may not be realised.
President Donald Trump of the United States of America has continuously renewed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act ( ZDERA)
since taking office while the European Union ( EU)
on February 19 2019 extended its sanctions on Zimbabwe.
ZDERA denies Zimbabwe access to US markets as well as benefits from AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000), promulgated by the US
Congress to promote trade between African countries and the US.
On the other hand, EU and US sanctions block Zimbabwe’s access to international development finance provided by the IMF, WB or any other multilateral development institutions such as Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD), and Development Assistance Committee ( DAC) countries.
Given the devastating consequences of sanctions, we need to look inwards and come up with innovative solutions that disrupt the effects of sanctions and allow us to unlock our potential as a country.
There are so many things we can do within Zimbabwe.
Hard work, innovation, good economic policies, fiscal discipline, fighting corruption and looting of public resources, promoting a science and technology driven education system, and so on.
These are some of the things we can do to drive economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation.
Reliance on foreign aid, donors and multilateral development partners is not key to transforming Zimbabwe’s economic fortunes.
The country has massive human capital, fertile land and other natural resources. We should use that as a foundation to spur growth and prosperity. Foreign investors should not be allowed to dictate terms to us. We have the resources that are in demand globally and we should be smart, and call the shots.