By Sami Faltas
Dambisa Moyo (www.dambisamoyo.com) is a Zambian economist who used to work for Goldman Sachs and the World Bank. In her book ‘Dead Aid’ she argues that foreign aid is an obstacle to development in Africa. She also says that African countries need a "decisive, benevolent dictator to push through the reforms required to get the economy moving." I am quoting from a review in the Wall Street Journal of 17 March 2009.
The Asian tigers have shown that it is possible to achieve rapid economic growth under authoritarian rule. Some of them, for instance Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan became democratic at a later stage. China did not. However, democracy and prosperity tend to go together. Most prosperous countries are democracies, and most poor countries are not. Brazil, India and Ireland and several other countries achieved high growth rates under democratic conditions. This suggests that, generally speaking, democracy is neither a requirement nor an obstacle for economic growth.
I will argue that democratic governance is necessary, or at least very helpful, for sustainable development. I believe this applies everywhere, including Africa. But first, let us look at Central Asia.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan tells his people: “First the economy, then politics.” He means economic development must come before political reform. I doubt this is the best way forward. Would political freedom and the rule of law not foster the development of an entrepreneurial middle class? Would they not reassure domestic and foreign investors and benefit Kazakhstan’s international stature as a political and business partner? Why wait?
Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution of 2005 has wilted. In an article published on the web site of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Martha Brill Olcott reports that Kyrgyz officials consider democracy a luxury their small and largely impoverished state can no longer afford. She adds: “We must all work to convince them that quite the reverse is true. In fact, the Kyrgyz cannot afford to not be democratic.”
I would like to think that Olcott is right. According to Amartya Sen, democracy has worked remarkably well in his native India. He goes on to say that it has actually held the country together. It could do the same for other fragile countries suffering from ethnic divisions, like Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Most scholars and practitioners consider good governance the key to development. Kofi Annan says: "Good governance and democracy are central to Africa's development. Without them it will be hard, if not impossible, for any African countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.” Today, it is generally accepted that the main cause of poverty in Africa is not a shortage of capital, technology, education or roads, but a lack of good governance.
Now the question arises whether good governance necessarily means democratic governance. As we have seen, an authoritarian bureaucracy has the potential to facilitate economic growth and social progress. However, it can also serve as an efficient killing machine. There are no safeguards that it will be used for good rather than evil purposes. I think Annan is right to link development with good governance as well as democracy. In the long run, a capable bureaucracy will be more effective and achieve more lasting results if it operates transparently and accountably under the rule of law. Democratic rule is more likely to facilitate sustainable development than authoritarian rule.
Democracy is not a luxury reserved for countries living in peace and prosperity. It is an effective and flexible form of rule, the best option for any country. Indeed, in the last 20 years, it has spread all over Latin America, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. According to the Polity IV database at the Center for Systemic Peace in the United States, there are now 92 democracies in the world, up from 48 in 1989. Democracy has become the rule, rather than the exception, for functioning states.
I suspect Dambisa Moyo is right when she says foreign aid has often been bad for Africa. But her call for benevolent African dictators is taxi-driver sociology. In the real world, dictators are not benevolent; they are thieves and murderers. Some of them may start out as idealists, but absolute power corrupts them. Anyway, even a nice despot would not be able to push through good governance as described by Kofi Annan, because dictatorship and accountability don’t mix. Finally, democracy is not like a Gucci handbag, a badge of wealth and sophistication. It is a basic need, the form of governance most likely to protect the rights and freedoms of poor, weak and marginalised people. It works in Botswana, Brazil, Ghana and India. Who says it cannot work in Cameroon, Chad and Egypt, as well as Belarus, China and Cuba?
Published in Security Matters, newsletter of the Centre for European Security Studies, issue 22, February 2010
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