A hurting hand

By PETER WORTHINGTON (Toronto Sun)

"When Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia, its president, Isaias
Afwerki, curtained foreign aid, pointing out that aid agencies paid
higher than local wages and stole the sort of people that the country
needed to sustain itself.

He also criticized members of the African Union for looting the
till and blaming Israel and colonial countries for all problems.
Leaders practised tribalism, drove Mercedes cars, travelled to
international conferences, opened Swiss bank accounts and
lived in luxury while their people went hungry. Corruption
was endemic and Isaias Afwerki’s candour won him

unpopularity"

A hurting hand

It’s better to spend money probing worthiness of CIDA than wasting it on
foreign aid

By PETER WORTHINGTON, QMI Agency

March 29, 2010 2:00am

Anyone who has travelled in Africa, especially in war zones, knows that
foreign aid can have the opposite effect on those whom it is intended to
help.

Too often over the last 50 years, foreign aid has been used to prop up
tyrannies instead of feeding and helping people. In the Ethiopian famine of
the 1980s, Canadian and American food aid often wound up in the kitchens of
the Ethiopian army, or on the local black market.

A CTV documentary team in Tanzania some years ago found Canadian aid rotting
and rusting on the docks, while a massive Canadian bakery put innumerable
small bakeries in Dar es Salaam out of business.

When Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia, its president, Isaias Afwerki,
curtained foreign aid, pointing out that aid agencies paid higher than local
wages and stole the sort of people that the country needed to sustain
itself.

He also criticized members of the African Union for looting the till and
blaming Israel and colonial countries for all problems. Leaders practised
tribalism, drove Mercedes cars, travelled to international conferences,
opened Swiss bank accounts and lived in luxury while their people went
hungry. Corruption was endemic and Isaias Afwerki’s candour won him
unpopularity. The Globe and Mail’s Africa correspondent, Geoffrey York
 has written about how Canada’s $15-million aid program against sexual
violence in the former Belgian Congo has been a bust, with money going
for T-shirts, vests, caps and posters and little of substance reaching the
 victims of rape and sexual violence. Rape is a weapon of war in Congo.
Sexual violence has increased since Canadian aid to deter it began in 2006.

Congo is at war within itself. For 20 years, neither victory nor peace is in
the offing. Aid people, including CIDA (Canadian International Development
Agency), need four-wheel drive vehicles, nice residences, good salaries, all
of which are financed from the aid pool. Administratively, CIDA’s
bureaucracy absorbs much of its budget.

Despite criticism from those on the ground in Congo, CIDA officials purport
to be pleased with the way things are going. (CIDA always says things look
good ­— hitches are relegated to the past). Things are not going well in
Congo. How could they? There’s no effective government and chaos and war
have thrived since independence in 1960.

CIDA claims 36,000 victims have received health services, with legal
assistance to 1,863 rape victims; 188 perpetrators pay compensation.
Nonsense! Legal assistance in a country of anarchy? Health services to
36,000 victims — that figure alone testifies to failure. Better to spend the
money investigating the worthiness of CIDA than wasting it on foreign aid
where it does actual damage.

I recall, during the civil war in Angola, CIDA aid going for a shoe factory
in the town of Ucua which, when I mentioned it to UNITA leader Jonas
Savimbi, caused outrage. He said Ucua was in the possession of UNITA and
there was no shoe factory there. So into whose pocket did the CIDA funds go?
We’ll never know.

Humanitarian aid to a war zone can be folly. To Congo it’s double-folly. We
even screw up aid to Afghanistan where we have soldiers. In Congo we have
nothing. Someday, maybe a Canadian government will grasp reality and
acknowledge that aid to some countries is useless, and at worst can
exacerbate the existing disaster.