Benson A Mulemi

Introduction

Eradication of poverty has been an elusive goal for many countries of the South since colonial times. Poverty reduction has been the theme in the debates and researches about development cooperation in North-South relations. This has led to very different approaches to alleviate poverty over the past decennia.

Colonial intervention

Colonial participation in the development of third world countries produced uncertain human development results. Classical evolution perspectives and the rationale of European enlightenment informed the desire for development partners to reproduce Western civilization through development aid to countries in the South. On the basis of these discourses, development cooperation entailed cultural exchange in order to transform the ‘African Other’ into ‘modernity’. The problem of poverty was relegated to endogenous and cultural factors. Poor countries and their citizens thus remained passive recipients of externally designed development programmes.

Colonial direct foreign investments produced the context that defines the livelihood vulnerability that other factors trigger among poor countries today. For example, the number of food shortages and famines in Sub-Sahara Africa increased since World War II. The need for industrial products in the West resulted in the violent distraction of traditional agricultural labour into mining and industrial agricultural for export to Western Europe, thus upsetting the traditional balance of subsistence and self sufficiency. Colonial involvement in developing countries in this sense aggravated inequalities already established by existing disparities in human, physical and financial capital in the capitalist world system.

By underpinning dichotomies of the progressive West versus the passive South, the authenticity of the South was overshadowed. However, many countries in the South also benefited from programmes aimed at the control of diseases with higher economic and political profile for colonialists. These included smallpox eradication, the dramatic reduction in polio incidence and the successful battle against onchocerciasis (African river blindness).  Nevertheless, the overall healthcare in the South has been under-funded since the later eras of colonialism.

The post-colonial era

The face of development cooperation and aid changed towards political independence in the 1950s and 60s. However, many actors in the global North presumed that developing countries needed only a few specific inputs in physical capital and infrastructure to grow. Many people believed that if the ‘West’ would provide capital and technical assistance, development would follow automatically. This view is also consistent with the assumption that development aid from the North could easily ‘trickle down’ to the poor peasants who constitute up to 80% of the population in developing countries. Projects based on injection of capital and technical assistance reflected only the priorities of donors. Reliance on project aid therefore made it difficult for governments to prepare coherent policies that reflected their own national priorities and people’s felt needs.

While it is true that Third World countries lacked resources at national and community levels, development aid did not effectively trickle down to offer individuals an escape from chronic poverty. Instead of acknowledging the impact of the colonial legacy, development analysts again tended to attribute the low pace of development in the South to unique socio-cultural and economic obstacles.

Response to global inequalities

Deliberate focus on global structural inequalities characterised the debate on development cooperation in the 1970s. Aid debates centred on the thesis few rich countries controlled the global economy, resulting from the colonial legacy of impoverishment of the South through political and economic hegemonies. This implies that aid to the South in the form of physical capital was insufficient, and the view that health and education were equally significant in development assistance gained strength. Some international development organizations encouraged direct focus on basic needs.

The global recession and debt crisis in the 1980s compelled Western Europe and North America to rethink local governance and development strategies. They desired privatisation of public services, deregulation, the opening up of domestic markets to international trade and more efficient public administrations. This included implementation of neo-liberal economic policies that resulted in the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). The SAPs became a precondition for foreign aid and development cooperation.

Development Aid with ‘strings attached’

Unfortunately, the implementation of SAPs slowed down economic growth and increased poverty in the South. The era of SAPs in the 1980s constituted a ‘lost decade’ with regard to international development cooperation because it produced the opposite of the expected results. Development aid and cooperation “with strings attached” under the rubric of SAPs entailed ‘development without a human face’. Poor people threatened with livelihood insecurity were to be denied the cushion of services that governments are expected to provide. E.g., the World Bank’s recommendation for a reduction of wards at the National Referral Hospital restricted poor families’ access to healthcare.

Around the same time, China presented itself as an alternative source of development assistance for some countries in the South, based on a development policy of partnership. China’s version of respect for national sovereignty is attractive to several African nations that are reluctant to implement economic and political reforms. These include countries with poor governance and human rights records.

Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations’ conferences in 1990s envisaged a plan to significantly reduce income poverty and multifaceted human deprivations by 2015, represented in the MDGs.

With respect to health, the inequities of global health have become more pronounced in Africa in the current decade than before. Reduction of infant and child mortality require halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, increasing the capacity of health systems in developing countries and increasing the availability of medical technology. Even when funding is substantial because diseases such as AIDS hit hard in rich countries, the pathogens in low-income regions often have different characteristics that require unique approaches. While a few developing countries have successfully implemented universal primary education, the realisation of most MDGs are still hazy world over.

About the author

Benson Mulemi is a medical anthropologist from Kenya and a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam.

Further Reading

• Cassels A. Aid instruments and health systems development: an analysis of current practice. Health Policy Planning 1996; 11: 354–68.
• 2001 http://medicine.nature.com
• Nelson, P J.  Human Rights, the Millennium Development Goals, and the Future of Development Cooperation, World Development 2007 Vol. 35, No. 12, pp. 2041–2055
• World Bank, World Development Report, 2000/2001, Attacking Poverty, 2001. World Bank: Washington DC
• Narayan, D. et al. Voices of the Poor: can anyone hear us? 2000 Oxford University Press 

References

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3. Drew T.  China’s soft power in Africa: from the “Beijing consensus” to health diplomacy. China Brief: Volume 5, Issue 21 (October 13, 2005)
4. McGee, R. & Brock K. From poverty assessment to policy change: processes, actors and data, Working Paper 133, 2001 IDS, Brighton, Sussex
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