Aid workers' usefulness called into question

"THE dispatch by western governments of aid workers overseas has long been regarded as an "irrelevant, ineffective and inefficient" way of assisting poorer countries, a leading African economist has asserted in Dublin.

Prof Adebayo Adedeji from Nigeria was speaking at a seminar in Dublin on African development. He said no area of development co operation had caused more disenchantment and frustration than such technical assistance.

Prof Adedeji is executive director of the African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies and former general secretary of the Economic Council of Africa. He is editor of a recently published study, South Africa and Africa. Within or A part?, and was one of three speakers addressing a seminar hosted by the Debt and Development Coalition.

The Government's Agency for Personal Service Overseas has said Ireland's programme is not "economically tied" and responds only to local demands. Although it costs between a quarter and a third of overseas aid, the UN development programme has already described technical assistance as a "revolving door model for foreign advisers and overseas training", Prof Adedeji contends.

External debt still represented a stumbling block to the economic recovery and sustainable development of Third World countries, he said. The total external debt is estimated at about 75 per cent of the combined gross domestic product of such countries, in spite of various debt relief measures introduced this decade.

The most recent G7 initiative illustrated the lack of commitment to solving the debt problem, he said. The treatment five countries Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Togo, Uganda and Nicaragua received under new terms belied the promise that the countries would be offered once and for all deals, he said.

Holding poor countries on a short leash was a "power game", in his view, and the donor community had failed to view the issue as a common crisis. This contrasted with the more serious attitude taken by creditor nations towards the Latin American debt.

This was partly because the debt was so huge as to threaten the US financial system on default, the effect of immigration into the US and of a relentless and well organised mobilisation and resistance against the imposition of the debt burden on Latin Amen car" people.

The chief executive of APSO, Mr Paul Beggan, said international aid was being scrutinised and any such criticism was valid. Technical assistance was perceived as self perpetuating and imposed on developing countries to protect the donor interest.

Ireland had some 1,300 people working abroad in APSO placements, largely through non governmental organisations and UN agencies, but this form of aid was not "tied", he stressed.

One could not compare apples with oranges, Mr Beggan said. In Cambodia, a whole educated class had been devastated by war and there was a clear need for those skills There had been a similar situation in Zimbabwe immediately after independence.

"Ninety per cent of what we do is long term development and we don't allow people to sit indefinitely at desks without serving a purpose," he said.

Also speaking at the seminar were Prof Bade Onimode, an economist at Ibadan University in Nigeria, and Prof Brendan Walsh of the department of economics at University College Dublin.

Those countries which followed structural adjustment policies to the letter had benefited, Prof Walsh maintained. However, Prof Onimode said debt was not just a financial question it was also a moral issue, particularly with countries which had repaid their debt four times over.

A new economic partnership with the developed world must strengthen human and institutional capacities, reduce poverty levels and ensure adequate access to social services, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told the seminar.

The role of women in Africa must be strengthened and enhanced, Ms Joan Burton said. New forms of regional economic integration in Africa should be carefully examined and a new partnership must address the debt problem and provide access to western trade and investment, as well as technology transfers.

. Aid agencies, the media and emergencies is the subject of a conference to be held in Dublin on Friday. The conference, on media coverage of Rwanda, is being hosted in Buswell's Hotel by Comhlamh, the voluntary association of returned development workers. Further information from Comhlamh at (01) 478 3490 or (021)275881.