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Last week, a leader of an African country publicly addressed feelings of shame felt by aid recipient countries that donor governments wouldn’t understand mainly because they, with the exception of Korea, had never been in such a position.
At summit talks with President Lee Myung-bak during his recent Africa trip, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was quoted as saying that wealthy countries never know how poor nations feel when forced to ask for help. They feel miserable, the Ethiopian leader said.
An international development expert said that recipient countries’ perception of foreign aid has not been properly considered when policymakers draw up and execute aid programs in poor nations.
“Aid talk” has been too focused on the donors’ side, while the recipients’ side was neglected, Nam Young-sook, professor of International Development Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said.
“There is a role that only Korea can play in international development assistance because it began giving back as a donor country from receiving foreign assistance for a long time.”
The professor suggested that there are dos and don’ts for those involved in foreign aid in Korea.
Nam called on policymakers to try to understand the position of recipient governments, saying they hold suspicion over donor countries’ motives even though they receive donations.
“Aid could discourage recipients from making efforts to achieve economic growth, and as a result they could end up relying too much on external assistance. This is the case for many underdeveloped countries in Africa, as well as other regions,” she said. “At the same time, they wonder why donors are trying to give them something free. They may not voice this in an explicit way, but they do have such suspicions.”
Her remarks came amid President Lee’s pledge to step up diplomacy with Africa.
In a speech aired through radio and the Internet Tuesday, Lee said Korea will help African nations, including Ethiopia, cut the vicious circle of poverty, stressing it has the experience of rising from extreme poverty in the wake of the Korean War (1950-53).
But Nam warned of the danger of passing on Korea’s expertise and experience to African countries.
“The situation facing Korea 30 or 40 years ago when it relentlessly pursued industrialization and Africa today is very different. This means that the lessons that Korea learned from the condensed industrialization period could not work out in poor African nations as intended. This is because people in these nations live under very different social and economic settings.”
Many poor countries in Africa have received international aid for decades. Despite this, little progress has been made in their developmental status.
“Foreign aid from Western nations has been offered to Africa for five or six decades after World War II, but their foreign aid appeared to be a failure because Africans are still living in poverty,” Nam said.
Africans’ heavy reliance on foreign aid prompted some donors to feel frustration that "enough is enough" after witnessing their donations not making any difference to the living standards of the poor. Donors have come to be slow in response to humanitarian crises.
The term donor fatigue has been at the center of the aid debate among some experts for many years.
But Nam blamed donor governments’ aid policies for the slow progress on the continent. Many contributing countries just poured in money, without carefully considering the unique characteristics of African economies, she said.
