This is the time of the year when reports about how well donors have performed in meeting their aid commitments are released.
This year what is on everyone’s mind is: will donors sustain their commitments or will they buckle under the global financial crisis?
African Monitor has issued its 2008/09 report, the Development Support Monitor. There is general agreement that donors made more progress in 2008 in terms of increasing aid to sub-Saharan Africa than in 2006/07.
Whereas in 2007 the G8 countries were significantly off track, the encouraging performance in 2008 demonstrates that if performance is maintained at the same level, most of the countries will meet the targets set for 2010, 2011 and 2013.
But there are some, notably Italy and France, who will not.
As we push the most industrialised countries to make good on their promises, we must prepare for the worst as we hope for the best. As is the practice in many African cultures, if your fire burns out, you fetch some from the neighbours.
Consequently, African Monitor takes note of the emergence of new donors, namely China, India and Brazil. But in this league are neighbours who are much closer to home: South Africa, Nigeria, Libya and other oil-rich countries are also providing aid.
In addition to fire-giving by neighbours, there is a lot that developed countries can do to assist developing countries.
Firstly, they can fast-track the process of debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative. Launched more than 10 years ago, it is unacceptable that 13 countries still have not yet reached completion point.
Secondly, for the first time, at $40-billion, remittances from the African diaspora have exceeded both aid flows at $38-billion and direct foreign investment at $31.36-billion.
Donors can ensure that arrangements are made to facilitate these remittances and encourage them to be channelled to productive investments.
Thirdly, trade should be further liberalised in favour of the products of poor countries so that there can be compensation for any loss of aid. In other words, aid for trade and fair-trading regimes would cushion poor countries against the most adverse effects of the global financial crisis.
Fourthly, the available resources should be invested in the most productive sectors so as to gain the highest return.
In most African countries, it’s now evident that this is in smallholder agriculture. Evidence shows that a 1% gain in agricultural GDP yields a 6% expenditure gain for the poorest population.
But we also know that rich countries without adequate arable land and water are rushing to Africa in search of land for producing food for their people.
The resulting deals are worth billions of dollars. About 300-million of our people in Africa may be suffering from chronic hunger, but other countries see food in Africa.
This means that Africa could use this period of great financial uncertainty to position itself to become the bread basket for those very countries by properly targeting agriculture and putting in place proper safeguards to ensure that Africans are the primary beneficiaries of their own resources.
Political commitments have already been made by both African governments and their donor partners to boost growth in agriculture to 6% per annum by investing at least 10% of their national budgets in agriculture.
What is now needed is to stop the talking and get on with it so as to move Africa from being a basket case to being the bread basket. The writing is on the wall — it is do or die.
Njongonkulu Ndungane is the founder of African Monitor and is the former Archbishop of Cape Town