AID TO AFRICA

Sir Economist Elliot Berg's assertion that Africa gets too much aid (The Irish Times, June 24th) fails to take adequate account…

Sir Economist Elliot Berg's assertion that Africa gets too much aid (The Irish Times, June 24th) fails to take adequate account of the varying quality of this aid and the environment in which such transfers have taken place.

If Dr Berg's analysis that aid is a problem rather than part of the solution is correct, then surely the fact that aid to subSaharan Africa has fallen by $670 million since 1991 should mean progress for that continent? Yet this is not the case. The 1997 Human Development Report published by the United Nations earlier this month shows that subSaharan Africa is now the only region where poverty is rising both in absolute and in relative terms.

Obviously there are various reasons for this and, as Dr Berg suggests, private investment has a key role to play in creating the employment and increased incomes that will help combat poverty. But it is also true that properly allocated aid is an investment and can be the catalyst which enables people in poverty to become productive and active contributors to economic and social development.

Poverty focused aid can and does make a significant contribution towards meeting the basic human needs outlined at recent UN conferences and restated in New, York during this week's special session of the General Assembly to review progress on the Earth Summit. However, the full benefits of aid will be realised only if governments - in both developed and developing countries - create an enabling environment through trade, agriculture, debt relief and arms control policies which put people at the centre of the agenda. These are the sign posts which should guide the rocky road from the Rio Earth Summit to New York and beyond. - Yours, etc.,

READ MORE

Policy Analyst, Trocaire,

Blackrock,

Co Dublin.