Aid has destroyed our creativity

For a country that often rushes for food aid to have courage to publicly pour to waste over 25,000 litres of milk and display several tonnes of rotting maize due to lack of storage is a clear indicator of the negative impact of aid.

I have been confronted by international journalists to prove my assertion that aid kills Africans more than it gives them life.

For international media, they demand to see a real physical project that illustrates negative impact of aid.

Failed projects can be resuscitated, what about people whose abilities have been destroyed?

Compare a person to a computer; if you destroy a computer’s operating system the remaining item is nothing but a box with wire circuits.

Such a box will not execute commands, unless it’s fed another operating system.

When analysing the negative impact of aid, one ought to focus on its impact to the African mind or the African mental “operating system.”

Aid has over the years successfully destroyed the African “operating system” leaving behind an empty box.

Kenya prides itself with universities that offer food technology courses and tens of agricultural colleges.

Relevant government authorities are yet to see the need to rescue farmers from the “over production” talk and seek expertise from hundreds of graduates from such schools that are “unemployed.”

The point is, under the current economic orientation aid is designed to keep Kenyans alive to consume imported products and produce graduates to service industries from donor countries.

Kenyans cannot execute commands until such a time designers of the programme (donors) come around to fix the food glut.

Business penetration

Developed nations have their own set benchmarks to achieve.

Such benchmarks may vary from business penetration (creating markets for their own products), political alignment, control of immigrants from Africa, and domination, among others.

Such countries have a keen eye on return on investments — it is pure business.

Can Africans talk of genuine democracy when 50 to 70 per cent of their national budgets are donor funded?

We are now aware of persistent “phone calls” that wake up politicians whenever they stray from their “duty.”

What is Kenya’s and by extension Africa’s benchmark on receiving aid?

If one used Kenya’s Agriculture ministry as an example; the benchmark might have been to use aid to import maize and feed Kenyans in the year 2008/09 and urge farmers to produce more food.

Well, they have produced more.

The ministry might as well ask for aid to have the food stored.

As I write this piece, Kenya is receiving a generous supply of rainfall and farmers are experiencing seed shortage.

Wealthy nations have over the years ignored the poor in their own backyard to send out funds to take care of their country’s long term national interests.

Investing in long term is what drives donors.

Investing in short term is what aid industry yields on the recipient side.

Illustrating failure of aid by use of physical structures may be the best for international media filming and news.

The worst damage the aid industry inflicts on recipients is in the mental attitude and governance structures.

Aid destroys the recipients’ confidence to confront challenges that face them.

The very term aid is an error; aid is big business and must be treated as such.

Let us get rid of aid and engage in business.

Shikwati is director of Inter Region Economic Network. james@irenkenya.org