New York Times
World Bank Cites Itself in Study of Africa's Bleak Performance
June 1, 2000
World Bank Cites Itself in Study of Africa's Bleak Performance
By JOSEPH KAHN
ASHINGTON, May 31 -- Devastated by war, corruption and disease, people
in sub-Saharan Africa live less well today than they did in the
1960's, and aid donors have to share the blame, the World Bank said in
a comprehensive study issued today.
The report, prepared jointly with the United Nations and African
development institutions, said Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda were among
a handful of African nations that have piloted a way out of extreme
poverty. But it says that with AIDS, malaria and civil strife rising,
conditions in the region as a whole are worsening.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the two leading
international lending agencies, have come under intense scrutiny over
their multibillion-dollar African aid programs. Protesters who ran
noisy demonstrations in Washington at the spring meetings of the bank
and the fund said the two institutions had made Africa poorer through
failed policies, a position that the bank's analysis partly
vindicates.
The 280-page report acknowledges that the heavy flow of aid in recent
decades did relatively little to ignite sustained economic growth, but
the study adds that the World Bank has reinvented how it manages aid.
"The temptation is to retreat into pessimism," the bank's vice
president for Africa, Callisto E. Madavo, said. "But I think if you
look at what we have been doing recently, you can see that we're
really on the right track."
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only major region that moved backward in the
later decades of 20th century, says the report, which catalogs the
many woes while prescribing some remedies.
In the early 1960's, African nations were widely considered more
advanced than East Asian nations. But between that time and the end of
the 90's, Africa retreated in real economic terms, while East Asia's
economic output increased fourfold.
Today, sub-Saharan Africa's 48 nations have a collective economic
output that does not much surpass that of Belgium. Poland alone has
more roads. Africa's share of world trade has steadily declined to
less than 2 percent.
Africa depends more on foreign aid today than ever, the reports says.
Loans and grants from rich nations account for 10 percent of total
economic activity, and a heavy debt burden constrains the ability of
governments to put their fiscal houses in order.
Infectious diseases like malaria and AIDS take more of a toll now than
at any time since the early part of the 20th century. Africa accounts
for 70 percent of the AIDS cases reported around the world. Even if
progress against the disease is made, experts expect AIDS to reduce
the average African life expectancy by 20 years, erasing all the gains
since World War II.
Endemic corruption and war, including the conflicts in Ethiopia as
well as western and central Africa, are the main causes of the bleak
performance, the report says. But the World Bank accepts some blame.
The report says the bank and its sister agencies have wasted billions
on ill-conceived projects. Even when projects were carefully managed,
they sometimes competed with national governments, drawing talented
bureaucrats and leaving nations "project rich and cash poor," it says.
The bank calls on rich countries to open their markets to imports of
African goods. Wealthy nations collectively spend $300 billion to
subsidize and protect their own farmers against foreign competition,
the report says, a figure that is as large Africa's total economic
output.
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