Africa for Norway

This video, and the website behind it have prompted a lot of thought.  Go ahead, take some time to check it out.  I’ll wait.

First, what this site gets right:

1.  Africa is so much more than what it is portrayed as.  Kenya is a major hub for culture and commerce, and is almost defined by diversity.  There are more than 40 distinct ethnic groups, not including substantial Asian, European, and North American immigrant and expatriate populations.  Nairobi is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, and generally has a high standard of living.

Yes, there are places like Mathare, and yes, in writing that post I may be guilty of the same thing this site is trying to prevent.  All I can say is that I spent a lot of time thinking about that, and tried hard to balance several different concerns in writing it, and admit that in all likelihood, I missed that balance.  Nairobi also has landmarks of capitalism like Westgate and Junction.  Every city has both, and we need to do a better job of acknowledging that.  When we think of New York City, we need to think about the South Bronx as well as Times Square and Central Park.  When we think of Nairobi, we should think about Upper Hill and Karen as well as Kibera and Eastleigh.

2. “Aid must be based on real needs, not ‘good’ intentions.”  Yes.  The problem is not corruption, as many would claim…or at least, not only corruption.  One problem is that things are sent which are not needed.  Do a Google search for SWEDOW (Stuff We Don’t Want) for more examples.  This type of aid is wonderful for the companies that do it.  They buy themselves good will, allow their customers to feel good about themselves, and get a tax deduction for doing it.  I have no problem for companies finding ways to do any of those things if they actually helped the people they claim they are trying to.  But they don’t.  The problem is not that people lack shoes or shirts, the problem is that they can’t afford to buy them.  Giving them away for free doesn’t help alleviate that problem, it actually compounds it.  The people who make, repair and/or sell shoes and clothing are put out of business and more people are put into poverty.   

Other problems can stem from the restrictions put on aid, especially when aid is used as a foreign policy tool. I met with people at one NGO, which receives funding from USAID.  I asked about how they defined their target area, their metrics of success, their criteria for including people in their programs received the same answer: USAID determines those.  By accepting support from USAID, this NGO had lost all ability to adapt and respond to what they actually saw on the ground.  I know of several other NGOs who refuse to accept funding from USAID because of that.

Food aid, in particular, can be a disaster.  There are many times where food aid is essential, and where food aid saves lives.  But Haiti is not the only place where it is disruptive.  The problem isn’t that people don’t have food.  The problem is that people aren’t able to buy or grow food. Dumping rice grown in the US may help US farmers, and may help to fill in critical gaps, but when not carefully managed, it creates enduring cycles of dependency by eliminating the local market. 

Many NGOs are getting better at this.  CWS Africa is one—a common theme across all of our programs is a goal for community self sufficiency, and substantial energy is dedicated to training community members so that there will come a time where the community will graduate and no longer need any aid.

Now for my doubts.

I am very uncomfortable with the pan-Africanism inherent to both this site and those it satirizes.  Africa is an enormous continent with vast diversity in culture, religion, geography, climate, language, topography, economy and political system.  Even subtracting North Africa, because I suspect that for many this pan-Africanism is focused on Sub-Saharan Africa, this diversity holds. 

Yes, these countries in Africa face many common problems, but those problems are not unique to Africa—they are global problems that exist, in greater or lessor degrees in every country on this planet, including Norway and the US.  By ignoring the distinctions and differences between countries, regions, and ethnic groups within Africa, the differences in their experience is dismissed. By emphasizing distinctions between Africa and the rest of the world, this video sustains the fiction that these are uniquely African problems.  It might have minimized this by choosing something other than ‘cold’ to focus on, but that might have sacrificed some of the message’s power.

And a finally, some caveats—on the whole, I support the idea behind the video and website, but it raises some things with which I am uncomfortable with and still working through.  I also recognize that there are a great many people who are far smarter than me who support Pan-Africanism.  I’m not seeking to attack either, merely to state my concerns, and, hopefully, begin some discussion.  This post is more about my trying to articulate some thoughts that likely represent the current stage of a process.  I don’t know where that process will go, but I invite anyone to help guide me through that process in the comments below.

Further, I want to emphasize that this post, and, in fact, pretty much everything on this blog, is reflective only of my personal thoughts, and does not represent the position of Church World Service, CWS Africa, Union Presbyterian Seminary, PC(USA), the YAV Program, or any other group or organization with which I may be affiliated.