Sub-national development beneficial to African development

Traditional development cooperation has always taken the form of donor governments financially aiding the recipient governments of developing countries, with the goal of alleviating poverty and promoting development in the long term.

Over the decades roughly 80% of development aid has come from government sources, with the European Union the world's largest donor and the United States annually contributing the largest share of official development assistance. Yet the success of donor aid over the years in fulfilling its intended goals in developing countries has been largely inconsequential.

Helen Zille, South Africa's Western Cape Premier, told Deutsche Welle that, "Donor governments see aid as independent and relying on national sovereignty, which doesn't allow their interference in political accountability. For true success in development cooperation, they need to go beyond that and ensure accountability of the political elite in Africa who often undermine the countries' sustainable development."

The 2005 Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness decreed that substantial reforms in the aid process were essential and created the 5 principles of ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results and mutual accountability.

"We don't want any neo-colonialism that allows donor governments to interfere and tell receiving governments what to do. The Paris Declaration has been very good in establishing the right values, ensuring they are articulated as a partnership of the right people aligned to the right causes," said Helen Zille.

Nevertheless regardless of the implemented reforms in the aid process, experts say government-to-government aid is both insufficient and ineffective.

Development aid's failures

"Traditional forms of government-to-government aid have often failed in achieving sustainable development. Pouring resources into dysfunctional government systems does not fix anything," said Premier Helen Zille.

Experts say financial aid has no real effect on the speed with which countries develop and is often simply squandered by the nations' political elite.

"Government-to-government aid has often entrenched the political elite system and turned aid into a tool of power patronage. Aid has in fact performed the opposite function in the past than it was intended by strengthening power abuse and hastening the countries' economic decline," said Helen Zille.

Even cooperation agreements between donor and recipient countries have often been merely words on paper with little effective action towards sustainable development.

"Germany concluded an energy partnership with Nigeria in 2007," President Horst Köhler of Germany said recently at a conference on international development policy in Bonn, "it's up to Germany to make that work, not just having it as words on paper. It's sad that in Nigeria no real progress has been made. It's a shame for Germany and the people responsible in the Nigerian government that they can't make stable electricity a reality till today."

Ghana and South Africa – the exceptions to the rule

"Ghana represents real democracy in Africa, south of the Sahara, for the very first time," said Oheneba Adusei Poku, a Ghanian traditional ruler, "Ghana is seen as a stable country in which investments can be made. Only in Ghana is there peaceful transference of power, largely due to the cooperation agreement we have with Germany. Since the agreement, we have launched training programs on technical, health and gender issues with the help of German expertise."

The stability and absence of large-scale corruption in Ghana has made traditional government-to-government development cooperation effective, unlike several of the nation's African counterparts.

South Africa is another African nation which has successfully created the right political context for sustainable development cooperation, where politicians fear the people instead of the other way around as usual in African nations.

Sub-national cooperation – an effective substitute

Participation of sub-national regions and municipalities in development cooperation is currently on the agenda as a more functional substitute to traditional development aid.

"I am deeply convinced," said German President Köhler, "that we need cooperation on all levels in order to ensure sustainable development, and it must be coordinated in a better way. A very good division of labor among Federal states is required."

Municipal cooperation between the North and South of Germany is essential to development cooperation. Roughly over 30% of German municipalities are already involved in development cooperation, particularly with their twin cities; the city of Bonn is in cooperation with Uzbekistan, Mongolia etc.

Several development banks recognize the efficiency of sub-national development cooperation as opposed to traditional aid and render support to European regions and municipalities which engage in it.

"We provide additional funding to municipalities and co-fund national reform programs which are a prerequisite for infrastructure development," said Wolfgang Kroh of the Reconstruction Credit Institute, (KFW), "151 million Euros have been given to 21 municipal fund programs for development cooperation. However, we must be careful to prevent a further fragmentation of development cooperation among national and sub-national sectors."

Critical conditions for sustainable development

The deepest source of sustainability in development cooperation is friendship. Donor and recipient governments must cultivate long-term partnerships which have a shared vision and are mutually beneficial. To achieve long-term sustainable development in developing countries, the partnerships must not be led by donor priorities, which has often been the standard in the past.

A major problem in development cooperation, experts say, is often the inability to translate the principles of the Paris Declaration into action and the lack of clearly defined practical goals to achieve sustainable development.

However sub-national donors must be sure to diagnose development problems properly and apply the right solutions to the right context. Africa has many faces and it is important not to stick to old clichés. One of the greatest problems in the most desperate of development situations, experts say, has been inconclusive diagnosis of the development problems.

Total reliance on governments to make development cooperation work, experts say, is not only unrealistic but detrimental. Sub-national sectors, and even individuals, need to solve their own problems and create their own partnerships for development, such as South Africa's partnership with the German city of Aachen.

Sub-national development cooperation may be highly effective, nevertheless it has its limitations in the grand scheme, as highlighted by Jürgen Linden, the Mayor of Aachen: "We are not the root cause of changing policies in developing countries but are small components of a European process. We add a supplementary benefit at a regional level."

Author: Faith Thomas
Editor: Rob Mudge