Aid to Africa: Redeemer Or Coloniser?

Hakima Abbas, Yves Niyiragira

Fahamu/Pambazuka, 2009 - Business & Economics - 191 pages

Debate on aid to Africa

While Africa is the biggest recipient of aid globally, the terms, conditions and principles upon which aid is delivered are rarely defined by the people of Africa – although it is for them that this aid, at least rhetorically, is meant to create positive change. With the current global economic crisis and high-level meetings on aid effectiveness, the debate on aid to Africa is resurgent.

African perspectives

Coming from the diverse perspectives of African social commentators, academics and activists including Demba Moussa Dembélé, Patrick Bond, Samir Amin and Charles Mutasa, this comprehensive volume explores the premise, history and foundation upon which the concept of aid is based. It considers aid's relationship to the broader development discourse in Africa, the politics and power dynamics of aid mechanisms and how the emergence of powers such as China and India are redefining the global aid architecture.

Understanding aid's inequity

Aid to Africa considers how to create a more just aid system that contributes to Africa's development while also elaborating alternative approaches that understand the inherent inequity of aid. Critically, this book provides a framework not merely to render aid more effective, something which the current mainstream discourse is grappling to define, but to create an alternative African development paradigm from Pan-Africanist, feminist and other perspectives.

"Relevant, academically well produced and a useful addition to the debate."
- Wolfgang Thomas, University of Stellenbosch Business School

'Pambazuka Press, in contrast to others, is determined to publish writings of long-term relevance: Aid to Africa: Redeemer or Coloniser? collects the reflections of fourteen intellectuals who, in the light of new perspectives, go so far as to question the relevance of all development aid.'
- Ilka Vari-Lavoisier, Le Monde diplomatique

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Contents

• Redeemer or Coloniser? Aid colonisation and the promise of African continental integration: 1
• Redeemer or Coloniser? The future of aid in NorthSouth relations: 13
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Aid from a feminist perspective: 26
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Africa battles aid and development finance: 42
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Aid for development: 59
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Aid and reparations power in the development discourse: 76
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Post911 aid security agenda and the African state: 93
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Africa official development assistance and the Millennium Development Goals: 106
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Aid effectiveness and the question of mutual accountability: 121
• Redeemer or Coloniser? The European Development Fund or the illusion of assistance: 132
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Africas new development partners China and India challenging the status quo?: 143
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Internal displacement humanitarianism and the state: 167
• Redeemer or Coloniser? Index: 181

About the author

Hakima Abbas is a policy analyst with Fahamu's African Union Monitor. He is the editor of Africa's Long Road to Rights. Yves Niyiragira is a Fahamu fellow and coeditor of the African Union Monitor.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Aid to Africa: Redeemer Or Coloniser?
• Editors: Hakima Abbas, Yves Niyiragira
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Fahamu/Pambazuka, 2009
• ISBN: 1906387389, 9781906387389
• Length: 191 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Development / Economic Development; History / Africa / General; Political Science / History & Theory; Political Science / Human Rights; Social Science / Developing & Emerging Countries