N'DJAMENA -- Jean Chrétien travels to Africa next month to boost a new plan to fight African poverty. The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) will be on the table at the G8 summit in Alberta this June, and it calls for investing $64-billion to help Africa get on its feet.
Good idea? You might think so. As the run-up to Zimbabwe's weekend election has shown, much of Africa is in dire need of help. In Chad, however, some of the people whom Canada's plan is supposed to benefit are not so sure it will work.
Taking a break from his backbreaking job growing vegetables on the bank of the Chari River, Mahmoud Mahamat says that, unless Mr. Chrétien personally puts some of the money in his hand, he might as well keep it. "The problem is that the government takes all the money from abroad and we get nothing."
Four other farmers, sprawling on their pallets amid a jumble of cooking pots, watering cans and empty kerosene bottles, nod in agreement. It is 4 p.m. Their working day began at 6 when they set out on the two-hour walk from their communal lodging in the suburbs of N'Djamena, capital of the Central African country of Chad. It will end with the long walk back.
Mr. Mahamat, who is 54, has spent 13 years like this, coaxing lettuce, tomatoes and carrots out of his little network of grave-sized plots by the Chari and selling them in the city market. He works every day of the week, stooping in the mud in heat that can reach 45 degrees. He sees his family only during the rainy season, when the flooded river covers his plots and he returns to his hometown in the country's interior. He makes 40,000 CFA francs (about $85) a month.
He would like to do something else. His dream is to open a shop selling homemade jewellery -- and he's sure he could if he had just a little help from others: a break on the rising price of seeds, or help buying a pump so he wouldn't have to haul his irrigation water up the river bank.
But he isn't holding out much hope. His only experience with "international development aid" came when French aid workers visited a few years ago and promised to send money to the government so he could get his pump. The money was sent, but, when Mr. Mahamat went to get the pump from government offices, he was told to go away. The money had vanished.
His friend Sadam Ramadan says Mr. Chrétien's NEPAD money is bound to do the same. "If he comes here, they will treat him nicely and take his money. But you can be sure we will see none of it."
It is a refrain you might hear anywhere in Africa. Rich countries such as Canada have spent billions trying to help poor ones such as Chad haul themselves out of poverty. Though some projects have made a difference -- vaccinating children, for example -- most of the money has disappeared as quickly as the rain that falls on the parched African earth.
Chad has been showered with aid from France (its former colonial ruler), the United States and a host of other wealthy countries. With this help, the government has launched any number of development projects: the National Project for Education, the National Project for Child Health, the National Project for Animal Husbandry. Chad remains one of the poorest places on Earth, ranking 155 on the list of 162 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index.
Only three in 10 Chadians have access to safe drinking water. Only four in 10 know how to read and write. The average life expectancy is 45 years. AIDS, malaria, TB and water-borne diseases are rampant.
In N'Djamena, the power goes off all the time, the water is foul and the phones are a joke. The roads are potholed and crumbling, and the pavement stops outside the centre, giving way to rutted, sandy tracks strewn with garbage. Horrific accidents are the result. In one recent incident, a truck crowded with people went off a bridge, killing 200.
The only Chadians prospering are the friends and relatives of President Idriss Déby, who swan around town in their Toyota Land Cruisers and ride first class to Paris on Air France when they need a break. When the power goes off, one senior minister checks into the Chari Hotel, the city's best, where he can be seen having drinks by the pool. "Who's paying the bill?" asked a cheeky local paper.
Ministers are so unabashed about their right to rob that they have given new meaning to the phrase "cleaning out my office." When they change departments or leave government, they take everything with them: computers, air conditioners, even the desks and chairs. They are expected to pocket millions of dollars more when a new oil pipeline from Chad to the Atlantic is finished.
"Unless we have cleaner, better government, all the money in the world won't help us," says Achta Djibrine, who heads the local office of Oxfam.
The NEPAD plan acknowledges that. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who leads the crusade to help Africa, insists that the money won't flow until the receiving governments agree to bring in economic and political reforms.
We will see. Africans have seen the rogues and kleptocrats who govern them make "good governance" pledges before, just to keep the money flowing. Nothing changes. "Nobody cares about us," says Mr. Mahamat, as he braces himself for the walk home. He wishes Mr. Chrétien well on his African trip, but has no hope that NEPAD will change anything. After a generation of broken promises and wasted aid, Africans have earned the right to be skeptical. mgee@globeandmail.ca
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