This edition of eAfrica contains five articles and one special feature. The articles deal with Nigeria’s anti-corruption campaign, the way Africa is coping better with high oil prices than expected, findings by an observer group of serious failures during Zimbabwe’s 2000 and 2002 elections, the mixed results from the Pan African Parliament’s third sitting, and whether or not Ugandan war crimes should be prosecuted.
The special feature concerns reform in the aid industry in Africa and concludes that a massive increase in aid will probably harm rather than help Africa, because increased spending on development aid do not reduce poverty in any lasting way. Problems stem from the recipient countries and the complex nature of development. Aid industries themselves are ignoring the lessons of history, and there are deep structural problems in the aid business itself. To achieve real change, Africa needs to break the present cycle of dysfunctional aid, which can be done by cutting aid funding, streamlining the aid agencies, enabling transparency throughout the aid industry, making it more performance-related, tying aid to reform, stopping forced annual spending, and redirecting marketing money.
