Many concur that it is time for Africa to ‘make poverty history’. With this goal in mind in 2000 world leaders from 189 nations have signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration and drew a list of Millennium Development Goals, trying to define strategies to support and assist African countries in their battle against poverty. For many years rich countries have been supporting the least developed areas of the world, but this time it is different. People are frustrated and worried. Fifty years of foreign aid to Africa do not seem to have produced the dramatic growth that was expected.There are many differentiated aid programmes in place directed towards Africa. Many of them are administered by the United Nations, others are the result of bilateral and multilateral agreements with various political entities, such as those financed by the European Union and managed through the European Development Fund. Other schemes are supported by private donations.Thanks to these schemes some positive results have been obtained. A to Z Textile Mills is a Tanzanian factory supported by Japanese company Sumimoto Chemical that manufactures mosquito nets and provides an example of how a well-calibrated type of foreign assistance can be highly beneficial to Africa. The nets are bought by the Tanzanian government and various non-governmental agencies that use them for their anti-malaria campaigns. The USAID Trade Hub programmes assist local entrepreneurs in their business taking advantage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, thanks to which African products are imported by America duty- and quota-free. Since 2005 thanks to these programmes exports to the US have risen for a value of $60 million.It is fair to say, however, that foreign aid is not working as efficiently as it should and the positive examples listed above are not enough The real per-capita income of Africa is lower than it used to be in the 1970s, and over 350 million people live on less than a dollar a day. People are becoming increasingly sceptical about the chances that foreign aid has in positively influencing development in African countries. Those who are confident in Africa’s own growing capability, like the director of Inter Region Economic Network James Shikwati, claim that foreign aid makes people too reliant on subsidies and unable to produce growth. If we look at the issue from a different perspective, however, we realize that the problem is not in the nature of foreign aid. Everything depends on the way foreign aid is used. Foreign aid corrupts its validity when people take advantage of it in the wrong way.Sometimes the misuse is operated by the donors. There is a difference between providing money, services and products that only act as a palliative to people’s life conditions and providing skills and instruments that people can use to produce their own means of subsistence. Foreign direct investments work in this sense better than money injections. Building a factory able to manufacture products that can then be sold produces employment and enriches the country. But even in those cases biggest attention should be paid to the calculation of risks and consequences. Many times money was wasted on projects that were not carefully thought through. The Norwegian International Development Agency (NORAD), for example, failed miserably when it invested in a frozen fish factory in Northern Kenya, only to discover there was not enough energy available to power it. As Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo reminds us in her book Dead Aid, care should also be put in schemes that comprise free provision of food and other products to the population. This apparently good way to support people in need could put the local producers out of business, as it has happened with the US Food for Peace programme. Financial aid should also be handled with extreme care. When great sums of money enter African countries the currency is likely to raise its value against others, leading to a higher risk of inflation. This happened in Uganda in 2005, when the government was obliged to issue bonds for $700 million.Foreign aid should be protected from the misuse by receiving countries too. In Africa governments are often in the hands of corrupt politicians ready to pocket aid that has to go though central government. Malawi's former President Bakili Muluzi was charged with embezzling aid money worth $12 million. The president of Zaire Sese Seko Mobutu built a fortune of almost $10 billion using the same techniques. Corrupt politicians decrease the chances of a country to establish a transparent and functioning system working to provide better conditions for its citizens. This problem can only be tackled through the formation of a new generation of well prepared, peaceful and good willing politicians, an efficient civil service and a society politically and socially involved. This is obviously very demanding in both time and efforts, but is what Africa needs to escape misery. Well administered aid in the form of education and social campaigns can be extremely helpful in speeding up the process. It might sound idealistic and a too-far-away goal, but fixing this kind of priorities is the first step for their realisation. As the philosopher and political economist Francis Fukuyama states in his article Out of Africa? it is important to ‘focus on the real core of the problem, which is the region's level of political development.’Africa is poor. Its climate, its geographical position and history have probably all played a part in it. At the same time Africa has a huge potential: resources, land and enormous dormant energy richness (i.e. solar). Why does Africa stay poor? It is certainly not because of foreign aid. It is the misuse of foreign aid and the lack of solid bases for the countries to take maximum advantage out of it that has so far precluded them from growing and developing.
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