International Policy

Africa Suffers From Corruption And Controls

Despite a wealth of natural resources and hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid each year, economic success eludes the vast majority of African countries, and violence and bloodshed erupt from time to time in some. Free markets are rare exceptions to prevalent command-and-control economies among the continent's 51 independent states, observers report.

  • The U.S. pours about $700 million worth of aid into Africa every year.

  • Liberia has been receiving U.S. aid for 51 years, but between 1965 and 1995 per capita gross domestic product declined 21 percent -- and in Ethiopia it dropped 18 percent despite 50 years of U.S. aid.

  • Forty years of U.S. assistance couldn't stop per capita GDP in Zambia from plummeting 46 percent from 1965 to 1995.

  • As of 1996, total African foreign debt topped $400 billion -- about equal to the continent's yearly GDP.

Meanwhile, the continent possesses 70 percent of the world's cocoa, 64 percent of its manganese, 60 percent of its coffee, 50 percent of its gold and phosphates, 40 percent of its platinum and 12 percent of its natural gas -- not to mention millions of acres of untilled farmland and unknown quantities of the world's oil and diamond reserves.

In the course of his tour, President Clinton promised Africans $1.2 billion in debt relief, $120 million for education, $2 million for refugee relief in Rwanda, several million dollars for barge-mounted power generators in Ghana and Internet links for Uganda's schools. Many analysts say Africa will inevitably have to free up its economies and U.S. aid is only delaying the adoption of enlightened policies.

Source: Editorial, "A Waste of Aid," Investor's Business Daily, April 2, 1998.

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