WASHINGTON, Apr 10 (IPS) - Foreign aid to Africa has fallen sharply and Western markets have remained closed to African exports, casting a pall over the economic prospects of million of people across the continent, the World Bank said Wednesday.
The Bank, in its annual African Development Indicators 2002 report, said official development assistance to sub-Sahara African countries had fallen to 12.3 billion dollars at the end of 1999, from 17.2 billion dollars in 1990.
While aid flows have declined most sharply to African countries at war, assistance to governments recognized as having sound policies also has dwindled," said the report.
Net official aid to Ghana, for example, dropped by almost 100 million dollars in 1999 from the year before. Mozambique, one of Africa's poorest countries yet also regarded by donors and creditors as a strong policy performer, saw aid fall to 804 million dollars from 1.04 billion dollars over the same period, said the report.
Wealthy nations must not only increase aid but also open their markets to African goods if they are to make good on their rhetorical commitment to the continent's development, the Bank said, repeating similar calls in the past.
Africa's swelling ranks of unemployed workers need jobs now - jobs that could be created rapidly in the agricultural sectors of many of the poorest countries of the region," said the report.
The Bank's researchers said cotton exporters in West and Central Africa would see their revenues swell by 250 million dollars per year if the United States -- the world's biggest cotton producer -- stopped subsidizing domestic production.
Cotton subsidies paid by just eight countries amounted to 5.4 billion dollars in the 1998/99 crop season, with the U.S. accounting for more than two billion dollars of this total," said the report. Such subsidies have driven down world cotton prices to nearly one-third of their peak level of the mid-1990s, it added.
Although West and Central African cotton farmers rank as the lowest-cost producers in the world, their governments still spend between 50 million dollars and 60 million dollars annually to help their cotton industries survive money that could instead be used for education, health, or roads if cotton prices improved, the Bank said.
Western countries could open their doors to African trade at virtually no cost, it added.
Irungu Houghton, U.S. program coordinator with the nongovernmental organization Action Aid USA, faulted the Bank's analysis as simplistic and said it sidelined the main issues of economic diversification.
Four African countries -- Angola, Nigeria, South Africa and Gabon -- account for 80 percent of Africa's exports to the United States, said Houghton.
Even if their exports increased to the U.S., that would leave some 50 other countries without access to the U.S. market," he said.
Houghton acknowledged the importance of aid and trade to Africa but urged a complete review of the economic policies in Africa so that African countries could diversify their economies and produce goods with value added like Southeast Asia."
The Bank has been such a reductionist in the sense that they are now short listing Africa's problems to only aid and foreign trade," Houghton said.
According to the Bank report, however, Africa urgently needs rich nations to deliver on their promises of more generous aid and wider trade opportunities to reverse the cruel effects of the HIV /AIDS pandemic, civil wars, and persistent low growth rates."
Many African countries continue to struggle to overcome a slump in the prices of non-oil commodities, like coffee, that have fallen by an average of about 35 percent since December 1997, the Bank said. Slumping commodity prices, dwindling aid and trade, and the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS are combining to erase the hard-won gains of recent years.
The Bank said that to meet the United Nations goal of halving poverty by 2015, sub-Saharan African economies would need to grow at seven percent per year on average.
The report gave credit to African leaders for taking the initiative in the form of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), signed in October 2001. Through it, said the Bank, they have pledged to pursue a compact of good governance with their people.
Many African governments are already putting in place policies that will boost growth, strengthen governance, and more effectively deliver social services. They are keeping their side of the global bargain. They now need rich countries to deliver speedily on theirs," said Callisto Madavo, Bank vice-president for Africa.
The Bank also appealed for greater coordination among donors and creditors.
Dealing with multiple donors has absorbed half of the time of scarce management expertise of some African governments. This must end," said Alan Gelb, the Bank's chief economist for Africa.
Three years ago, the Tanzanian government offered a stark example of the strains donors place on an administration. It observed that it was producing 2,400 quarterly reports annually for its donors, who were sending missions at the rate of 1,000 a year.
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