The spat between Dambisa Moyo and Bill Gates and its relevance to Mrs Kenyatta’s #BeyondZero

So Bill Gates claimed that Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid ‘promotes evil’ and that she knows little about aid. And Dr Moyo responded (in her blog) that she got a PhD in economics and wide experience, how about Bill?

Reading through the articles about this confrontation, I couldn’t help but relate with the ongoing debate in Kenya regarding the appropriateness of the #BeyondZero campaign aiming to mobilise donations to improve maternal health sponsored by Kenya’s 1^st Lady Mrs Kenyatta. There are those who laud the good lady for such a noble initiative. Then there are those like my friend Rita Oyier who rightfully ask: ‘Why should I pay taxes then run again” – alluding to the fact that if public finances were better managed, we would not need marathons and donations to fund maternal health.

The tragedy with the aid debate remains the fact that there are a bunch of skeptics (the likes of Bill Easterly and Dambisa Moyo) on one side and another lot of maniacs (the likes of Sachs and Gates) on the other end shouting at the top of their voices and preventing honest, factual debate on aid.  We know that neither of them is absolutely right.

Whilst aid has alleviated suffering (especially in humanitarian crises), improved infrastructure and promoted better institutions for governance and management of the public sector in Sub-Sahara; it has also distracted governments from effective Domestic Resource Mobilisation, economic diversification, or private sector development that would provide sustainable solutions to the problems aid has dealt with.

But aid skeptics (like Dambisa Moyo) fail to provide practical, logical, credible alternatives.

Dr Moyo benefited from aid in the form of scholarship to earn her Havard education (like many Africans continue to do). Bill Gates should know that countries like Burundi have up to 40% of their budgets funded by Official Development Assistance not because they cannot increase domestic revenues but more because aid has been made available.  

So calling aid ‘dead’ (Dr Moyo) or claiming that the book ‘Dead Aid’ promotes evil (Gates) does not help.

On the Kenyan example re - #BeyondZero. I think the campaign is well intended but the First lady could use her influence (being the person who goes to bed every night with the holder of the policy pen), to institutionalize a stronger, more effective and sustainable solution to financing maternal health in Kenya. 

She could begin with sponsoring a bill to increase and ring-fence maternal health funding in the annual budget. 

What happens when another 1^st lady comes who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about maternal health? Michael Jackson and a constellation of stars sang ‘We are the world’ in 1995 to mobilise resources for Sudan. Is the problem solved today? Billions of dollars was donated to support Haiti after the devastating earthquake, but has the problem been addressed?

I am for complementarity. Neither aid nor the market/growth focused approaches will succeed in isolation. But if we complement prudent Public Finance Management with effective development cooperation, we have a chance. 

My 2pence!

Donor interests shaping East African regional integration?

" [...] the aid effectiveness paradigm notwithstanding, donors have been and continue to be motivated by their own strategic [...] interests and aspirations" (Ravi Kanbur)

Since its re-establishment in 2000, the East African Community (EAC) has experienced a surge in Official Development Assistance (ODA). Between 2005 and 2013, the volume of ODA disbursed to support the EAC budget increased by 800% from US$8.5 million to US$76.1 million and the portfolio of donors expanded to constitute over 25 development partners. In the 2013/14 financial year budget estimates, ODA constitutes 65.0% of total EAC income. 

There are concerns that the prominence of ODA in EAC revenue streams might be negatively influencing the trajectory of the integration process. Article 132 of the EAC treaty requires that the EAC budget be funded by equal contributions from Partner States. The Secretariat has, however, not succeeded in sufficiently consolidating such funding. Though contributions from member states more than doubled between 2005 and 2013, its proportion of the total EAC budget declined by 21.7% while the share of ODA increased by 21.7% over the same period. Both the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) and the Secretary General of the EAC have cautioned that the continued dependence on donors may deflect the EAC from its primary objectives and urged Partner States to raise the bulk of funding for the EAC budget in order to remain adequately in charge of the integration agenda.

" [...] the result maybe and experience shows that it infrequently is, a concentration of operational work on particular themes that correspond more to donor preferences than to overall programme priorities defined at national or international levels ..." (UN Publications)

Studies on resource flows for multilateral institutions in the past have indicated that whereas ODA significantly expands and diversifies revenue streams for recipients, it can be exploited to exert influence over policy, legislative and operational conduct of recipient multilateral organisations. Donors may capitalise on their patronage to skew operational work to their political and strategic aspirations thereby failing to align their resources to the priorities of the recipient. This might frustrate effective execution of an institution’s mandate and undermine the achievement of its core objectives. 

The question is: 

• What has motivated the surge in donor interest in the East Africa Community?
• How much have donors influenced the conduct of the EAC integration process thus far?
• To what extent has the over reliance on donor support to finance the EAC budget impinged on the ability of the institution to objectively drive through its agenda?
• To what level have donor interests and preferences occupied and and shaped the EAC integration agenda?
• Are there any accountability mechanisms within the EAC framework to manage donor interests?

“ [...] developmental or humanitarian concerns including poverty receive relatively low or zero weight” when donor motivations for aid delivery are considered" (Mark McGillivray)