World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz criticised rich countries, including the United States, for failing to increase aid to needy developing nations at a time when some African economies were about to ”turn the corner”.
Some key economies were improving, he said, but the countries still needed aid to make the most of new opportunities.
”To date there is not a single example of a country case where aid is being significantly scaled up to support a medium-term programme to meet 2010 global poverty reduction goals,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Wolfowitz’s concern about the aid efforts of the world’s richest nations follows figures released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on April 3, which showed that US contributions fell 20% in 2006 from 2005.
Rich countries’ official aid to poor nations totalled $103,9-billion in 2006, down from $106,8-billion a year earlier.
Wolfowitz reminded industrial countries of their promises of more aid at a summit of the Group of Eight in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005.
”We have yet to see evidence of significant new flows translate into real resources for development programmes on the ground,” Wolfowitz said.
The issue is likely to be raised at meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington this weekend.
”Counting everything, there has been a 5% decline in development assistance in the last year, which is hardly a way to get to a scaling-up,” Wolfowitz said. ”An awful lot of what we are getting is not usable in the form that countries can use to make long-term plans.”
Hospitals and roads
Wolfowitz said that while the cancellation of some of the debt of poor countries had helped, aid was needed to deliver medicine to those living with HIV/Aids and to build hospitals and roads.
Even for strong-performing countries in Africa, such as Ghana and Tanzania, where growth is breaking into the 5 to 6% range, foreign help was important to develop infrastructure so businesses could get their goods to market, he said.
”You could say 10 years ago that these countries were held back mainly by their own bad governance and that extra money wouldn’t help,” Wolfowitz said.
”But we’re not in that era now. They are moving into the zone that countries like Korea were in the 60s and 70s, where the policies were in place and they need investment resources.”
The World Bank chief said wealthy countries needed to remember their 2005 promises of more aid, which would help Africa reach its economic potential and in so doing reduce poverty.
”People need to remember their promises and, more importantly, they need to understand that we may be facing a real historic opportunity to turn the corner in Africa,” Wolfowitz said.
At a news conference later, he took aim at the United States.
”I do mean to pick a little on the US,” he said. ”Frankly, a lot of donors are looking to see what the US is going to do, and particularly these small, but very generous, countries like the Nordic countries.”
Wolfowitz was referring to discussions under way between the World Bank’s major donors to replenish funding for the bank’s facility that lends to its poorest clients, most of them in Africa. The talks take place every three years.
He said the US had a ”pretty good record recently” on support for HIV/Aids and malaria projects, tackling two of Africa’s biggest killers. – Reuters