Recently, the British government announced a further cut of aid to Uganda, whose budget dependency on donor funds stands at 41 percent. James Shikwati, the Director, Inter Region Economic Network and a top analyst of foreign aid tells Moses Bwalatum why donors should cut aid altogether.

Mr Shikwati, you speak passionately against foreign aid. Specifically, what is wrong with aid given to a poor country like Uganda to better her situation?

Who said Uganda is poor? It is important to wipe out the notion that Uganda is poor given her immense agricultural potential, human resource, wildlife and minerals. Your question is evidence of the mindset the foreign aid industry has successfully entrenched in Africans. Foreign aid is making African countries remain poor by killing local innovation; perpetuating neocolonialism and making people in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa fail to take ownership of the problems afflicting them. You will never solve a problem effectively unless you own it!

Uganda has a cash flow problem – that is not equal to being poor. Each Ugandan thinker, economist and politician ought to figure out how to get money flowing in the hands of Ugandans. That happens only when we add value to products. Africans should learn to consume their products instead of relying on developed country markets. Uganda policy makers should put a good business environment in place both for locals and outsiders. The banking industry must also reform and offer credit to people with sound business plans. The Uganda government on its part should facilitate more Ugandans doing business and the government should engage in less business ventures.

Africans are surrounded by enormous resources. Would you side with the opinion that the African is a lazy man and therefore Africa needs aid to stay afloat?

The African is not a lazy man but simply confused and overwhelmed by ‘do-gooders’ from wealthy nations. The moment the African will realize that nothing comes for free, and nobody loves him so much as to simply doll out free money, he will wake up and start working smartly. Africa does not need aid to stay afloat. Aid is the disaster, the ‘tsunami’ wrecking havoc in Africa’s development agenda. The African people and the leadership must reject it and in its place ask for access to markets and opening up of the continent to African business people.

If aid does not bear fruit, and the African knows this, why does almsgiving to Africa continue?

I doubt whether all Africans are aware of the dangers of reliance on aid. Almsgiving to Africa, being a business in itself benefits the giver more than the recipient. That is why it keeps going on. Africans should realize this point and develop a different game plan on how to engage the rich nations.

Why do you think Africa is still not standing on its feet despite all the development aid?

Over half a century after many African governments gained independence, they failed to identify causes of wealth, that is, people’s ingenuity and productivity. They were lulled by short-term visible goals that aid often offers. The good news however is that the new global political dispensation offers models that the African can emulate. China has been able to wake up from its communist label to threaten the capitalist West by focusing on their population as a resource rather than a curse. Africa, being aid driven has been made to believe that people are a curse because the donor says that he cannot feed many people.

One key reason why Africa fails to stand on its feet is that it started fighting its own resource. Small traders are harassed out of business all over Africa; farmers have been neglected all over the continent; the government does more business than the people. The government, thanks to aid, is richer than its people; hence everybody wants to join politics: very few want to become successful business people. Africa has been unable to rise up due to African leaders’ neglect to reform the colonial rules that were against African business ventures. Africa has a serious leadership crisis. To develop, Africa must re-think the whole aid philosophy and concentrate on opening its boarders so that the 800 million plus can freely generate wealth for themselves

If foreign aid is not crucial to solving Africa’s problems, what should Africa do to transform her society?

Africa must first of all have on its agenda, one key point: that each individual has the first responsibility of solving his/her own problem. Secondly, to address the market issue,  African governments must open up their borders to each other and let Africans move freely in the continent and invest. Thirdly, African governments must offer incentives to locals who start businesses that help in addressing poverty, illiteracy, diseases and hunger. Fourthly, we should have more and more Africans investing in productive business rather than politics. The Africans must ensure that they get good leaders and assist the leaders to achieve the goal of creating a new African civilisation. 

You are also the publisher of The African Executive which you launched in Uganda recently. What is it about?

The African Executive is an online magazine whose main objective is to promote business minded Africans while at the same time celebrating our local entrepreneurs. An ordinary Ugandan will be pleased to know that through The African Executive he/she has a forum to discover the latent market in the region and be able to vigorously defend his/her interests in the international arena of business.

Why did you launch the magazine in Uganda?

Uganda is part of the upcoming East Africa family of nations. It is very strategic for us to get the business people in Uganda to start thinking regional and position their products for the wider market in the region. Another reason for coming to Uganda is to ensure that we give Ugandans a forum to discuss their anxiety, fears and happiness as pertains the formation of the East Africa Federation.

Given its reach, The African Executive seems to be a tool for elitist debate since it is available only online. How can it be a tool of change for the ordinary African in the village?

It is a deliberate move on our part to have the magazine online because we know that Africa will not remain backward technology-wise forever. We are literally out to ‘force’ African business owners to seek to fit into global standards of doing business. We cannot achieve this if we set low standards. Our magazine is not elitist: we address issues that affect the ordinary person. We urge business through our commentaries to focus on the huge market at the bottom of the pyramid. We give people at the village level an opportunity to argue out their issues. That is why we have country coordinators who ensure that this happens.

The African Executive is already a tool of change. We recently published a story about the controversy between Uganda government and European Union surrounding DDT introduction in Uganda. This led to a series of information emerging from various stakeholders on how to handle malaria. Right now, an experiment has been launched in the rural border between Kenya and Uganda where unemployed youth are engaged in indoor spraying using ICON, a chemical approved by the W.H.O. Through our commentaries on how business ought to fight poverty, several seed companies have taken the issue a notch higher and are effectively competing with each other to the extent that they offer agricultural extension services for free, to demonstrate that their seeds are better than their competitors’. In the long run, it’s the farmer in the village benefiting, but at The African Executive, we set the pace. We are now working on getting African coffee and tea farmers ensuring that each morning; 800 million Africans consume at least 800 million cups of the same!

What have you done in your organisation to make the African self-reliant?

I am working with smallholder farmers in the arid Eastern Kenya on a model that has started bearing fruit in so far as food security is concerned. I am also working with youth, who once thought that they were jobless, to fight mosquitoes [malaria] and generate income for themselves. I meet East Africa journalists once a year to discuss issues affecting Africa. I also host African thinkers once a year to discuss the future of Africa. I am in the process of establishing an African Think Tank Association. I am pushing the aid debate in several international fora to let the world know that the African of today is tired of being baby-sat. No sane African ought to complain that they do not have jobs when Africa has so many problems. We must turn all African problems into opportunities and make ourselves rich, thereby making Africa proud.

This is unabridged version of the interview that first appeared in the Daily Monitor on July 18, 2006