[Back to index] [To Volume13#2-3 -- full graphics]
From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#2-3 (September 1999), page 32 (part of special feature on ECA conference "Financing for Development")
'The Emperor needs new clothes'
The Netherlands' Minister of Development Cooperation Eveline Herfkens spoke vigorously to the conference, and to Africa Recovery.
On donor-recipient relations: One of the things we donors have been doing wrong is [not allowing] developing countries to be in the driver's seat of their own development. We have been micro-managing aid, putting our own priorities there. I hope we can develop a partnership that will ultimately support the budget of the country concerned, so the government can follow its own priorities. This can only be done [with a] consensus about the quality of the policies, the quality of governance, and within a fiscal framework, so I can [convince] my parliament that the cheque I give to the health minister does not end up with the defence minister.
On conditionality: I have reduced the list of countries we have programmes with from 78 to 20. It is important to focus scarce concessional resources on the really poor countries that have good policies on the macroeconomic side and the social side, and good governance. [Also] I think it is healthy to introduce competition. I think it is good for African countries to be aware that concessional money is scarce, and that you have to compete.
You have conditionality ex ante by choosing a limited group of countries where you know you have basic agreement about what development is about, and what priorities should be set. This is not [my own] paternalistic list of conditions. Every government in the world put its signature under the 10 points of [the] Copenhagen [Social Summit]. Those developing countries that are serious about implementing the international consensus to reduce poverty are partners I can work with.
I am in favour of a certain degree of conditionality. The money borrowed in the whole debt crisis never benefited the poor, and the first to suffer were the poor. Debt relief must benefit the poor. [But] not every one of these HIPC countries has a government that gives me a comfortable feeling that the poor will benefit. So we need a type of conditionality that ensures that money from debt relief will be spent on health and education. My taxpayers are not prepared to transfer funds to elites who then put the money into Swiss bank accounts. I was very impressed by the ECA conference paper on capital flight, which stated clearly that Africa has the highest proportion of capital flight in the world. [So] how do you expect taxpayers in the Netherlands to have confidence in Africa if your own people don't have that confidence?
The best conditionality is that which is owned by the government concerned. In Mozambique, for example, the government has a genuine commitment to poverty reduction. That is the type of government I want to support. And thank God there are more in Africa. They deserve the money, and I want to focus on those governments that deserve the money. I am very concerned [that] the constituency [for aid] is eroding. The time is over when the argument of justice persuaded people to spend on aid. It is truly important that we show results.
On the HIPC initiative: I was on the World Bank Board when HIPC started. [The Netherlands was] in favour from the outset of faster, broader and deeper debt relief. The problem has always been who pays for multilateral debt. I have always been staunchly against financing through the multilateral system in a fashion that other developing countries in fact pay for debt relief. I find it very interesting that the G7 has finally come to the conclusion that HIPC is not good enough. It isn't. Presently, HIPC is under-funded. So I want them to put their money where their mouth is. I told the Development Committee in Washington [in late April] that it is really time the Emperor starts buying clothes. These speeches are great public relations exercises, but nobody is going to get any debt relief until the yen, dollars, deutschmarks, pounds and French francs are on the table. I commend the Jubilee 2000 coalition for effectively putting the debt issue on the public agenda and pushing the momentum towards the Cologne summit.
On technical assistance and foreign experts: I am against technical assistance the way it has been given for the last 30 years, [as] more of an employment policy [for 'donor experts'] than it actually helped developing countries. I [fear] that capacity building is just a new label for old-fashioned technical assistance. There are places where foreign experts have been hanging around for 15 years and where foreigners work in ministries without a counterpart. This is totally useless; it is a takeover by foreigners. So I am only going to give technical assistance [that is] genuinely demand-driven, where the country itself [can explain] why it needs it, for what purpose, under what terms of reference, for how long and under what conditions.
[Back to index] [To Volume13#2-3 -- full graphics]
Material from this article may be freely reproduced, with attribution
to "Africa Recovery, United Nations".
We would appreciate a copy of the reproduction.
Africa Recovery
Room S-931
United Nations
New York, NY 10017 USA
Tel: (212) 963-6857
Fax: (212) 963-4556
Email: africa_recovery@un.org
Website: www.africarecovery.org
Contact us by email: africa_recovery@un.org