A few months ago, at the height of the Christmas shopping season, Oxfam encouraged us Britons to give “the gift of dung” to Africa. That’s right: dung. Apparently poor African farmers like nothing better at Christmas time than to receive a bucket of shit with which they can fertilise their crops.
Oxfam called on British consumers to donate some of their Christmas shopping money to its new campaign to send “funusual” gifts to poor parts of Africa. Alongside the gift of crap, you could also lavish poor Africans with the gift of condoms (“Rubberly jubberly!” said the Oxfam website), five bags of seeds (“We’re sacks maniacs!”) or a goat (“a mobile source of income”).
“Buy someone a gift related to Oxfam’s work and make a real difference to the world,” the charity yelped.
Contrast this “funusual” approach to Third World development with the work of Chinese businessmen and officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Last week, BBC TV’s Newsnight revealed that the Chinese have a signed a trade deal with the DRC worth a whopping $9-billion. As part of this package, the Chinese will help to build 2 400 miles of road, 2 000 miles of railway, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres and two universities in the DRC.
Now, if you were (or are) a poor African struggling to make ends meet, who would you prefer to see treading a path to your village? A worthy, well-spoken NGO volunteer from Islington in London laden with the gifts of shit, contraception, goats and seed? Or a Chinese guy in a suit wielding plans to build roads and factories and schools and in the process create thousands of new jobs?
I thought so. Bring on the Chinese.
China’s trading with Africa has given rise to a great deal of tortured, handwringing debate in Western commentary circles. A few weeks ago the Economist, the bible of Western capitalism, ran a front cover showing a Chinese man riding through an African desert on a camel, under the heading: “The new colonialists”. Others complain that China simply wants to get its hands on Africa’s resources and is not really interested in African welfare.
Yet one spin-off consequence of Chinese investment in Africa has not been properly commented on: the way that it has implicitly undermined the arguments of leading Western charities and NGOs.
For more than a decade now, groups such as Oxfam have tried to convince us that poor Africa needs small-scale, sustainable development, and that caring Western consumers can change an African child’s life forever by sending him a pencil or a cutlass. Westerners have tended to believe that for the price of a Starbucks latté they can have a meaningful impact on an African person’s well-being and future prospects.
In one fell swoop, the Chinese have nuked these rather patronising ideas by showing that it is possible to build massive infrastructure in poor Africa, and what’s more, that Africans want this kind of investment. The spread of Chinese trading in Africa is causing a severe crisis of confidence among sustainable-minded Western charity and aid workers.
China’s trade with Africa has grown exponentially in recent years. Between 2002 and 2006, it rose from $12-billion to $40-billion. In December 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao confidently predicted that Chinese trade with Africa would increase to $100-million by 2010. This has meant more jobs for Africans and more infrastructure in their towns and cities. And not surprisingly, many African officials and workers seem happier dealing with the no-nonsense, large-scale Chinese than with the small-scale NGO representatives who often hail from former colonial powers.
The policy of the Chinese government is to trade with Africa on “the principles of independence, equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs”. Contrast that to the attitude of Western NGOs and financial institutions, who often attach various strings to their aid: they demand that African governments must be more “transparent” and that African adults must agree to be “sexually responsible” before they can receive their Western handouts. As one British writer argues, “China’s anti-colonial approach and its ability to ‘get the job done’ has clear appeal” for African leaders who for a very long time have had to “jump through hoops” in order to receive a bit of cash from Western organisations.
Sahr Johnny, Sierra Leone’s ambassador to Beijing, put it well in an interview in 2005. He said: “We like Chinese investment because we have one meeting where we discuss what they want to do, and they just do it. There are no benchmarks and preconditions, no environmental impact assessment.” This makes a dramatic change from the form-filling, impact-measuring culture of Western aid to Africa, where Africans must continually prove their goodness and honesty in return for the gift of dung or some extra farming equipment.
Western activists and commentators have responded to China’s rise in Africa by trying to problematise the idea of “trade without strings”. BBC News recently complained that China offers “no-strings aid”, which is “a marked contrast to Western donors who impose conditions on aid and tie trade sweeteners to human rights issues”.
Human Rights Watch seems to believe that China’s non-political trading and aiding with Africa will nurture more dictatorships on the continent: “China’s growing foreign aid programme creates new options for [African] dictators who were previously dependent on those who insisted on human rights progress.” In short, Chinese investment is a problem because, unlike “enlightened” Western investment, it doesn’t use financial and political blackmail as a way of keeping African rulers in line. With attitudes like that among Western human rights activists, it is no wonder many Africans are welcoming the Chinese with open arms.
Western observers should have more faith in poor Africans and their leaders. If Africans want to deal with Chinese investors who treat them as adults rather than as victims, good for them. And if they are exploited by their Chinese employers, as many no doubt are, then they are more than capable of standing up for themselves — as demonstrated by the recent riots over poor pay in Chinese-owned factories in Zambia. It is time for Oxfam and others to cut the apron strings: Africans are grown-up enough to determine their own futures, and to decide who they want to work with.
The West should have faith in poor Africans and African leaders? What a joke! What exactly have the latter done so far, to encourage said faith?
Africa had better watch out: The Chinese are way too clever for them.
China is doing this to secure resources for the future and by the time the Africans have repaid the Chinese for the new roads and hospitals they’ll be in disrepair.
China won’t be doing this out of the goodness of their hearts! What they will take in payment will far exceed their initial investment.
It’s like buying something on higher purchase, you end up paying far more over a longer period!
It is such a shame that prominent real estate on national newspapers is given to the uninformed thoughts and prejudices of Brendan O’Neill. Media monopoly of thought through their owner’s agendas is the greatest tragedy (yes yes I’ve heard about editorial independence blah blah, but who really bites the hands that feeds?).
Clearly this O’Neil fellow is a history drop-out. The magnificent decaying, neglected, infrastructure, the rusted tractors, the inland lakes came from China?
Go back to school O’Neil
Brendon:
I assume you’ve never lived in Africa.
If the people of the DRC (Grocho Marx said,”Any country with the word ‘Democratic’ in it’s name ain’t”) were able to choose between:
1) Basic agricultural goods(manure,seed,livestock etc),
or
2) roads(for which they have no vehicles),railway line(for which they have no trains),hospitals(for which they have no doctors or nurses),
guess which one they would opt for?
Bob mugabe(who the British and the US helped to get into power) has always been close friends with the Chinese. How has the country benifited?
The Chinese are in Africa for what they can get out – not for what they can put in.From what I’read and seen on tv,rural China makes Soweto look like Manhatten.If they can’t uplift their own people, surely it’s naive to think they will help a people they despise.
Finally, your derision of the the likes of Oxfam an(by implication) Bob Geldorf is a kick in the nuts (or fanny) to many dedicated people.
@ Gareth
Are you drinking Klippies with that Eish? – Pass us a shot this side boet.
Not one of the previous posts mentions that there is not just one emerging power competing for Africa’s resources, but two. The second is India.
And if anyone thinks India will be a benevolent investor, think of Mittal Steel. Even the SA govt is now at its wits end how to reign in Mittal Steel.
Here are some recent articles on India’s push for Africa’s resources.
New Delhi rushes to catch up to Beijing in race for commodities
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=4336104
India moves to cement African partnership
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=4345338
India loosens purse strings to cultivate resource-rich Africa
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=565&fArticleId=4343928
Development Centre Studies
The Rise of China and India
WHAT’S IN IT FOR AFRICA?
Get the entire book (155 pages) here
http://www.ony.unu.edu/seminars/2006/whatsinitforafrica/oecdreport.pdf
African countries are not simply spectators to the economic rise of China and India, they
are party to it. This book demonstrates how the growing economic power of China and India
is already influencing the growth patterns of African countries, particularly oil- and
commodities-exporting ones. As world prices for commodities rise, producer countries
in Africa and throughout the world will gain, but there is more to the story than that. Some
African countries are redirecting part of their trade and other relationships from their traditional
OECD partners to China and India. The book explores the consequences of this, and comes
to some surprising conclusions.
This book is a must-read for anyone who is concerned with the changes in the world
economy being brought about by the extraordinary economic growth of China and India.
Not only do they represent over a billion workers, but these workers are also consumers and
investors. As China and India consolidate their positions in Africa, the results could
be unexpected and dramatic.
China and Vietnam are the current world leaders in poverty reduction.
From 1980 – 2005, China lifted 400 million of its own people above the $1 per day poverty level, which is 75% of all the people in the world lifted above this level in this period. There are many article on this, see e.g. http://www.finfacts.ie/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003611.shtml
“..the poverty rate of two dollars per day in China was as high as 64.5 percent in 1993, it had fallen to 37.8 percent by 2004″.
“Along with Vietnam, China is the only other country experiencing a reduction in 2 dollars-a-day poverty rates of two percentage points or more per year on average since the early 1990s”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/16/content_6888061.htm
South Africa has slipped back 35 places in the Human Development Index (largely but not entirely due to HIV/AIDS), and its HDI ranking in 2007 was 121. In the last few years, China has advanced 20 positions in the HDI rankings, and is now at 81. India’s HDI in 2007 was 128.
China Exports Poverty Reduction and Development
Mode
Here is an extract from the article at http://en.chinagate.com.cn/news/2007-10/21/content_9098722.htm
Ms. Cynthia, from Ghana, participated in the “research classes for officials on African countries’ poverty alleviation policies and practices” organized by the International Poverty Reduction Center in China in 2006. As part of the curriculum, she visited a poverty reduction project in Menghua Village, Longsheng County, in southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
“Ghana has similar poverty relief projects, yet the effect is far less obvious. Ghana needs to learn from China’s successful experiences in poverty relief and development,” concluded Cynthia in her paper. She hopes that the Chinese government can send experts to guide poverty alleviation projects in Ghana.
From 1980 – 2005, 400 million people in China were lifted out of the $1 per day poverty level, this is 75% of all the people in the world who have been lifted out of poverty over this period.
There are many articles on this. Here is one. http://www.finfacts.ie/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10003611.shtml
If $2 per day is used as a poverty level: “the poverty rate of two dollars per day in China was as high as 64.5 percent in 1993, it had fallen to 37.8 percent by 2004″.
“Along with Vietnam, China is the only other country experiencing a reduction in 2 dollars-a-day poverty rates of two percentage points or more per year on average since the early 1990s.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-10/16/content_6888061.htm
Zakmeister wrote:
“No churches either, only the masses toiling away for a pittance under a brutal regime”
The following is from one of the articles in the April 2007 Edition of China Today Magazine, which had a Special Report: Protestantism in China: Religious Rites and Rights http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/English/e2007/e200704/ctenglish.htm
“Today China has no more than 4,000 pastors and associate pastors working for 16 million Christians in 55,000 churches and congregations.”
Another article in this special report is by a visiting American professor of Hebrew and Old Testament, who is teaching pastors in China.
I am not particularly into dung, so I would opt for the Chinese. Love it!
CYNIC, What have Zambians done to you? Where is the hate and bitterness coming from? Stop making false claims. The Chinese do not control neither do they account for a large chunk of Zambia’s copper production. The leading producers are Vedanta, Glencore and First Quantum Minerals. Please avoid misinformed rants and disinformation. Not everyone in Zambia has AIDS.