• Mayweather

By CHARLES SIMENGWA –

FLOYD Mayweather Jn has lately been in the news, not for his boxing prowess, but for his views on aid to Africa.
The multi-millionaire has taken a lot of flak for emphatically stating that he is not under any obligation to assist Africa simply because his forefathers hailed from the continent.
During an interview with radio personality Kelly Mac late last year, Mayweather said while he had a “good heart”, he did not feel obligated to give to charities, specifically in Africa.
“(People) say ‘well, he got all this money, why is he not giving to Africa?’” started Mayweather.
“Well, what has Africa given to us? What has Africa came (sic) and gave to my children and to my family? Things work two ways.”
The debate has been reignited in the social media where the boxer’s bare-knuckle views have prompted abusive criticism from some social commentators, who deride Mayweather’s spending habits as ridiculous.
“Just when you think Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather has gotten all the foolishness and ignorance out of his system, he displays that it runs deep in him like his boxing skill…” wrote one F. Taylor in Celebrities published online recently.
“Floyd appears open, honest and frank about his lack of donating and lack of desire to donate. The way he sees it is he has an obligation to his family, and his family only because let him tell it, no one would ever return the favour if they were in need.”
From where Taylor stands, Mayweather’s feelings are peculiar because if he were stacking and saving his money, that would be one thing.
“On the contrary, he is very extravagant with his earnings buying jets, multiple priceless cars, jewelry and more,” further wrote Taylor.
It is much the same way international economist Dambisa Moyo suffered blistering attacks when she exploited the hard truths about aid to Africa in her 2009 book carrying the title ‘Dead Aid’.
Dr Moyo examined some crucial reasons why aid was not working and how there was a better way for Africa.
She explained why US$1 trillion of aid sent from rich Western countries to Africa had been an economic and political disaster on the continent
Dr Moyo, a former World Bank consultant, indicated that despite good intentions, aid led to slower economic growth, higher poverty levels and incompetent government in recipient countries.
She outlined policies the international community should adopt to support African countries in their efforts to create sustainable economic growth.
Dr Moyo provided a historical context for how the aid model had evolved over the previous five decades, and the range of economic and political problems aid introduces to poor countries, trapping them in a vicious circle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion, and further poverty.
She put forward some cogent reasons for the continent to abandon its marriage with aid, which was only fuelling the appetite for more assistance.
Dr Moyo described the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and confronted the myth that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations had helped to reduce poverty and increase growth.
But her offer of a bold road map for financing development of the world’s poorest countries that guarantees economic growth and a significant decline in poverty, without reliance on foreign aid or aid-related assistance, elicited mixed reactions.
As some antagonists of aid welcomed Dr Moyo’s challenge to Africa, others seethed openly and described her as an elitist who was out of touch with reality.
The critics who did not distinguish humanitarian and emergency aid from economic aid took to vehement protests against the book.
But, now, almost six years after Dr Moyo’s unsettling views, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has urged fellow African leaders to stop receiving foreign aid, which he says is not an acceptable basis for prosperity.
“Dependency on giving that only appears to be charitable must end,” he said in a tweet ahead of last weekend’s African Union summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
This is not a Kenyan government policy but a rallying cry for African leaders, according to the BBC.
Aid is believed to account for five to six per cent of Kenya’s total income, with the United States of America, European Union and the United Kingdom being the biggest donors to the East African country.
Mr Kenyatta said foreign aid “often carries terms and conditions that preclude progress. It is time to give it up.”
He seems to have been emboldened by the fact that while Kenya received a lot of aid, it survived for four years without foreign assistance after Western countries suspended their aid in 1991, to express their anger with then President Daniel arap Moi.
In the face of differing standpoints on aid, Mr Kenyatta is helping to tilt the scale for leaders on the continent to re-examine their individual countries’ positions on sustainable economic development.
Africans should not continue portraying themselves as “victims of circumstances” when the continent is endowed with abundant resources.
Consider the Grain Fish Money, Financing Africa’s Green and Blue Revolutions, Africa Progress Report 2014, which states that Africa is a rich continent.
Some of those riches, especially oil, gas and minerals have driven rapid economic growth over the past decade.
The ultimate measure of progress, however, is the wellbeing of people – and Africa’s recent growth has not done nearly as much as it should to reduce poverty and hunger, or improve health and education.
To sustain growth that improves the lives of all Africans, the continent needs an economic transformation that taps into Africa’s other riches: its fertile land, its extensive fisheries and forests, and the energy and ingenuity of its people.
The Africa Progress Report 2014 describes what such a transformation would look like, and how Africa could get there.
Agriculture should be at the heart of that transformation. Most Africans, including the vast majority of Africa’s poor, continue to live and work in rural areas, principally as smallholder farmers.
To achieve such a transformation, Africa will need to overcome three major obstacles: a lack of access to formal financial services, the weakness of the continent’s infrastructure and the lack of funds for public investment.
The report describes how governments on the continent and their international partners could cooperate to remove the obstacles, and enable all Africans to benefit from their extraordinary wealth.
The annual Africa Progress Report is the flagship publication of the Africa Progress
Panel published every year in May, and draws on the best available research and analysis on Africa.
Elsewhere, economist Paul Collier says African resource reserves may be underestimated, as less exploration has taken place on the continent than in other regions.
African countries’ share of global reserves and production of non-fuel minerals is considerable as well.
Collier notes that Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have a combined share of 6.7 per cent of the total world copper production, while Ghana and Mali account for 5.8 per cent of the total world gold production.
But it is the mineral wealth that, in 2013, made the African Development Bank (AfDB) query whether it was a blessing or a curse for some countries in Africa.
There are many arguments both about the potential of Africa’s exceptional natural wealth, and the reasons why it fails to deliver.
“We estimate that Africa has 120 billion barrels of oil reserves, no less than half of Saudi Arabia, and 600 million hectares of uncultivated arable land, half of the world total.
“There is no doubt that the potential is truly transformative, as we have seen in countries like Angola. We at the African Development Bank estimate that the continent’s natural resources will contribute over $30 billion per annum in government revenues over the next 20 years,” states report by AfDB.
Africa is said to be losing over $60 billion a year in illegal outflows and price manipulation in the extraction of minerals, with most of the proceeds going offshore.
Natural resources industries, and especially extractives, have developed as ‘enclave economies’, generating wealth that is exported rather than shared, or ploughed into the areas where it is needed most, in meeting human development challenges and building infrastructure.
There needs to be robust policy, sound regulatory and legal frameworks, and transparency in how decisions on the exploitation of resources are taken, and the revenues distributed.
“That is why the first priorities in dealing with natural resources are not so much about exploration or exploitation or the environment… but about best policy and practice,” the report further states.
More recently, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo indicated that value addition to raw materials will mitigate shocks associated with falling commodity prices on the international market.
General  Obasanjo, who was in Zambia for the Africa Export and Import (AFREXIM) Bank annual general conference, said social and economic disparities on the continent should be addressed, alongside political uncertainties and terrorism.
He said the impact of dwindling prices of copper, oil and other export commodities could be avoided if Africa exported finished products.
“Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance, are leading copper producers, but why should we buy copper products in London when London does not produce copper?
“We need to buy copper and copper products from the copper-producing countries. We need political will at national and continental levels in the management of natural resources in Africa,” Gen Obasanjo said.
He further observed that corruption and wastage of resources had undermined development, hence the need for implementation of policies that would benefit the continent.
As Dr Moyo argues in Dead Aid, African countries should create a new economic plan that phases in alternative financing mechanisms as aid is phased out.
These new financing mechanisms should include increased trade (particularly among African nations and with emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil), foreign direct investment, entrance into international capital markets, and increased domestic savings through remittances and microfinance.
In the absence of these measures, Mayweather could be right about Africa’s seemingly unending dependency on aid.
Was it not the same overzealousness that greeted Barack Obama’s election as US president, when many Africans primed themselves for prodigious amounts of aid simply because Mr Obama’s father hailed from Africa?