Books & arts

Debt Relief Initiatives and Poverty Alleviation: Lessons from Africa

Edited by Munyae Mulinge and Pempelani Mufune

2005-03-10, Issue 197

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/27187

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Exclusively distributed by African Books Collective Ltd, The Jam Factory, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU United Kingdom
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Debt and poverty and what to do about them are receiving as much attention as ever before. Hardly a day goes by without some or other world leader incorporating these issues in their rhetoric, or civil society organisations following through on another campaign attempting to persuade the powerful to be less rapacious towards the recipients of their power.

This book, although published for the first time in 2003, is therefore an interesting read in the context of the debates taking place over debt and poverty. Consisting of 29 essays that examine debt and poverty alleviation (although it is questionable whether the term “alleviate” should ever be used in relation to poverty; eliminate is surely a more appropriate word), the essays raise critical issues that are often glossed over in much of the coverage. As with any collection of essays of this size, there are those that are particularly interesting and will appeal to the general reader, and those essays that will only appeal to readers who specialise in a particular field, or are policy makers or scholars.

The introductory essay “The African Debt Dilemma” is useful in terms of providing a broad overview of Africa’s debt burden, reminding the reader of how enormous burden of payments have led in turn to Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), declining economic growth and investment and a massive brain drain.

But, as pointed in the following essay, “Debt Forgiveness Initiatives and Poverty Alleviation”, debt is not the only reason for poverty and it would be mistaken not to consider other factors such as bad economic policies and issues of governance and corruption. There is truth and value in the conclusion of the essay, which suggests that before debt relief, structures must be put in place to ensure that the resultant funds are effectively utilised. However, this point should not be made without taking cognisance of the strong moral arguments for debt elimination and the illegitimate nature of much of the debt. It is not the fault of the pregnant mother that she has no access to health care because so much of her country’s earnings are spent on servicing debt; nor is it the fault of her child who suffers stunting because society is so devastated as to be unable to take care of its citizens even in the most basic way.

The focus on the damage that debt obligations have wrought on societies and the frequent examples to this effect (In Tanzania and Malawi, less than 2GBP is spent on healthcare, but 11GBP per person on debt repayments) makes it clear that Africa’s population has been done a monumental injustice. Not only that, but Africa’s future development and any talk thereof is nonsensical until the debt issue is resolved. Debt, to Africa’s people, is not the efficient killing of Auschwitz, but it is the long drawn out pain of terminal cancer.

No section of society is spared from this cancer, and the essays highlight the effects of the debt crisis on a broad spectrum of the population. The essay “The Debt Crisis and its Effect on African Women and Children” explores how the most vulnerable members of society have suffered as a result of the debt crisis, stating that the debt crisis has affected the welfare of women and children by forcing governments to cut back on spending for basic social services while the outflow of earnings has left governments unable to pay for imports central to the provision of social welfare facilities.

The specific situation of those countries most damaged by the debt crisis are also addressed, as in the essay “The Politics of Debt Relief and Poverty Alleviation in Africa”, which analyses Zambia’s debt problem by examining its origins, magnitude and causal factors and its adverse impact on development. The essay explains that the allocation of the bulk of resources to debt service have deprived the poor of access to education, health facilities, clean water and housing. Astonishingly, it states that Zambia spends 40 percent of new aid money on the repayment of loans. Life expectancy had fallen to 41 years in 2000. Malnutrition had led to a high infant mortality rate of 202 per thousand in 1999 and 40 percent of children in Zambia suffer from stunted growth.

This review has focused on the essays that deal specifically with the African debt crisis, but there are also a large number of essays that relate to the theme of poverty alleviation, not only as this relates to the debt theme, but also in relation to the widespread effects of landmines on poverty levels in Mozambique, for example, or the situation of the urban poor in Addis Ababa and the ineffectual nature of NGOs. The state of aid in Tanzania and how the link between poverty reduction and foreign aid flows is hard to find is another interesting topic tackled.

“Debt relief Initiatives and Poverty Alleviation: Lessons from Africa” is a 29 essay, 400 page volume that, as the back cover fairly states “will be of interest to both scholars and policy-makers, as well as anyone concerned with the future of Africa.” Be warned though, this probably isn’t your kind of book if you’re looking for a light introduction to Africa’s debt and poverty problems and it was the opinion of this reader that a heavier hand could have been exercised in the selection of the essays to give the collection a more streamlined feel.

* Reviewed by Patrick Burnett, Fahamu

* For orders, please contact African Books Collective.

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