Date: Wed Nov 19 16:28:43 2014
African presidents 'use China aid for patronage politics'
Most of the $80bn of development funds sent to Africa went to areas where
national leaders were born rather than the most needy, says AidData report
* Mark Anderson <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/mark-anderson>
* Wednesday 19 November 2014 16.04 GMT
African leaders are almost three times more likely to spend Chinese
development aid in areas where they have ethnic ties, casting doubt on the
humanitarian effectiveness of Beijing's strict "hands-off" policy in the
continent.
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-07/10/c_133474011.htm> China
says it spends more than half of its foreign aid in 51 African countries,
sending $80bn between 2000 and 2012. But most of that aid went to areas
where national leaders were born, indicating a strong political bias,
according to <http://china.aiddata.org> a geotagged database of aid
contracts published by AidData, an open-source data centre.
"As soon as [a region] becomes the birthplace of an African president this
region gets 270% more development assistance (from China) than it would get
if it were not the birth region of the president," said
<http://hodler.weebly.com/> Roland Hodler, professor of economics at the
University of St Gallen in Switzerland and co-author of a report,
<http://aiddata.org/sites/default/files/wps3_aid_on_demand_african_leaders_a
nd_the_geography_of_chinas_foreign_assistance.pdf> Aid on Demand: African
Leaders and the Geography of China's Foreign Assistance, published in
conjunction with the database.
Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia received the most
Chinese development assistance over the reporting period, the study showed.
China is sending development funds to African governments with the aim of
buying long-term political alliances, Hodler said. Sierra Leone's president,
Ernest Bai Koroma, recently used Chinese aid to build a school in Yoni, his
hometown, according to the report.
"To us, this suggests that the Chinese principle of non-interference in
domestic affairs allows African presidents to use Chinese aid for patronage
politics. I am sure the Chinese are aware of this, and I would argue that
they accept it because they care more about having a president who is
sympathetic to them than about the poor," said Hodler.
But the study also noted that, contrary to
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2013/apr/29/china
-commits-billions-aid-africa-interactive> popular belief, Chinese aid to
Africa is not strongly tied to countries that host Beijing's oil and mining
operations. "We do not find a strong pattern that Chinese aid only goes to
regions where there's a lot of natural resources. The picture that they only
go after natural resources is not really confirmed by our sub-national level
analysis," Hodler said.
Deborah Brautigam, director of the China Africa Research Initiative at John
Hopkins University, said: "Most Chinese finance in Africa is not official
aid, but business-related export credits borrowed by governments to finance
infrastructure projects of various kinds. If these governments want to
channel projects to their home town, Chinese banks would have no objection.
"For official aid, which is heavily diplomatic, the Chinese government looks
beyond any sitting African leader to all the leaders to come, and to public
opinion more generally. This is why they use their official aid for big,
visible projects like stadiums, ministry buildings, and airports that can be
seen and used by many people - in the capital city - and not tucked away in
a rural hamlet."
Researchers took data that China published on its foreign assistance and
mapped where development projects were located. "The Chinese tend to send
more aid to countries that are somewhat poorer but within these countries
they go for the relatively rich regions," said Hodler.
China maintains that it sends aid to African governments with the aim of
furthering their development agendas.
The Chinese government said in July: "When providing foreign assistance,
China adheres to the principles of not imposing any political conditions,
not interfering in the internal affairs of the recipient countries and fully
respecting their right to independently choosing their own paths and models
of development. The basic principles China upholds in providing foreign
assistance are mutual respect, equality, keeping promise[s], mutual benefits
and win-win."
MDG : China in Africa : Xi Jinping Forum on China-Africa Cooperation
(FOCAC)Xi Jinping delivers a speech at a China-Africa cooperation forum. New
data casts doubt on the humanitarian effectiveness of Beijing's strict
'hands-off' policy on aid to Africa. Photograph: Paballo Thekiso/AFP/Getty
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