The following are excerpts from an interview published by Dnevnik, Dnevnikov Objektiv newspaper on the subject Africa- Poverty of Wealth on 11.11.2006. The full interview which covers a broad spectrum of current issues in Africa will be published on the IREN website. Talking to Kristina Bozic, James Shikwati, Director of Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) argues that Africans are not genetically corrupt and examines the role of NGOs in Africa

Many Africans I talked to said that NGOs are good for Africa because otherwise all the money the donors give would only enrich politicians as corruption is so permanent.

I know we have terrible corruption cases in Africa, but there must be someone who benefits from the belief that Africa is corrupt and that you cannot trust anyone in Africa. So, if a multinational wants to set up a business, they will always bring a manager from their own country. The NGO aspect is just part of this picture, portraying Africans as poor and genetically corrupt. We need to counter these beliefs. If a head of state is corrupt, it is not the whole country. Due process of law needs to take care of corruption. This has been difficult because we never talk about the root causes of corruption. You cannot say Africans are poor; they live on less than a dollar a day, while their heads of state have trillions of dollars in a Swiss bank account. Where did they get it? It comes from the very donor, who tells us that our head of state is corrupt. Who is really corrupt? Our head of state with bank accounts in Switzerland or this rich nation, that gives him the trillions so that they can access something? They simply buy our heads of states.  As they do it, they use the media to cast them as victims of corrupt leaders. They never reveal the willing game they played and what they got out of it. This equation demonstrates the fact that rich countries always get what they want.

So how can Africans change that? How can ordinary Kenyans change that?

We need to create awareness among rich nations that they are equally to blame for the corruption in Africa. Taxpayers in Europe, in the U.S.A among others, have to know that their governments are responsible in part for what they are accusing Africa of. As they put pressure on their governments, it will be easier for us in Africa to do likewise on our governments. Fighting it on two fronts will be easier. If you blame only African leadership, you cannot solve the problem. After new leaders replace the old, corrupt ones, things do not change. Usually they get worse. In Kenya for example, Moi, the former President was accused of being one of the most corrupt leaders. When we got a new president, everybody thought: “We are safe now.” The head of state went ahead to hire a Transparency International person to be his anti-corruption adviser. What happened? Within two years, the new government has engaged in worse corruption cases than Moi’s in his 24 years. What does that tell you? We are not addressing the whole equation. Conspicuously missing is the rich, donor country. We are leaving them out thinking that all we need to do is remove current African leaders and everything will be fixed. We are not talking about the ones who bring in billions, supply military hardware and grease the hands of the government officials to make sure deals hold. Rich nations do not practice what they preach. But we are in a way lucky – we are learning.

Are NGOs’ taking over educational and medical sectors, just to point out two, weakening African states?

I see this as part of a ploy to show that there is no leadership in Africa and even if leaders exist, they are corrupt. When you tell people they have no leaders, you are telling them they are nothing. We do have leaders; however they are not able to exercise their abilities on the global political stage. NGOs come in to justify the lack of leadership. They do it very well, as they build schools, where the governments did not. In the short run it looks good, but in the long run, it destroys many things. It kills, first of all, the old democratic essence. If you think the government is ineffective and the NGO is the effective one then why should people vote? We need to be very careful when engaging developed countries. They are not stupid. They know what they are doing. If they make us feel we have ineffective governments, they will later become our governments.

This is why I have been criticizing Mr. Sachs with his Millennium goals and villages. He is saying that African leaders and governments are so corrupt hence money should go directly to the villages.  It looks good, but … what are you telling the villagers when you come directly to them? You are showing them that their governments are useless and they should directly turn to the UN to solve their problems. But at the same time Mr. Sachs promotes democracy and democratic ideals. Do you see how stupid this makes Africans look? First you want us to vote, then you tell us our government is ineffective. In essence you are going to reach a state when you can say: “Shut up, vote him, it is only he who can deliver this.” It is not that what NGOs are doing is in essence bad, it is the problem of the whole picture.

In a way, NGOs do what aid is doing. They are sending the governments to sleep. In short term everybody likes it, but in this world where everything is done for the best of interests, the NGOs will not just leave after they build schools. No way. They will speak to you every time the international media wants to know what is happening in Africa. The world view of Africa is what NGOs say. Of course they want to paint Africa as a place of poverty in order to stay in business. There is dire need for indigenous NGOs, who see things in terms of “we don’t need money, we want good work.” Inter Region Economic network (IREN) is doing this already. Some NGOs know what they are doing, some might not even know that they are harming. Everybody wants to help the man dying by the road. But giving help and saying we are helping, we are the ones offering the services and at the same time call for strong institutions – does not add up.