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Democratic Trajectories in Africa: Unravelling the Impact of Foreign Aid 3 number 7, 2013 Overview When, why and how has foreign aid Democratic Trajectories in facilitated, or hindered, democracy in recipient countries? Focusing on sub- Saharan Africa, this policy brief examines Africa: Unravelling the Impact the impact of foreign aid on supporting transitions from one-party to multi- of Foreign Aid party regimes, preventing democratic breakdown and the erosion of civil liberties, enhancing vertical and horizon- ver the last decade, sub-saharan africa has tal accountability, and enabling competi- experienced impressive economic growth and witnessed the emergence of a tive political party systems. Particular O nascent middle class. Nevertheless, for a number of African governments, foreign attention is given to the trade-offs and aid continues to represent a vital source of finance to provide public goods and complementarities between different services. While aid certainly plays a role in shaping development outcomes in types of foreign aid, namely democracy Africa, this policy brief focuses on its impact on general political governance and assistance and economic development aid. Select policy recommendations are specifically democracy. As highlighted in a declaration at the conclusion of the offered to improve aid effectiveness at 2011 Fourth High-Level Forum of Aid Effectiveness, “promoting human rights, bolstering democratic trajectories democracy, and good governance” are viewed as integral to the efforts of the inter- 1 within the region. national donor community. The relationship between aid and democracy is especially relevant in Africa due to the region’s still high level of aid dependence and its relatively short experi- Written by Danielle Resnick ence with democracy. Official development assistance (ODA) to all of Africa as a © United Nations University, 2013 share of gross national income (GNI) has declined from 6.2 to 4.9 per cent over ISBN 978-92-808-3109-2 the period from 1990 to 2009. Yet, this still remains four times higher than the ISSN 1814-8026 next most aid-dependent region, the Middle East and North Africa.2 The role of Licensed under the Creative Commons aid within the region is complicated by new resource flows, including large-scale Deed “Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 2.5” natural resource discoveries and the growing influence of non-traditional bilateral donors, such as China, India and Brazil, that do not belong to the Development The views expressed in this publication Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation are those of the authors and do not and Development (OECD). necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University. Although a large number of studies exist on the aid–democracy relationship, this brief examines the disparate effects and trade-offs of both democracy and eco- nomic development aid. Moreover, democracy is conceptualized as a multi-faceted process that includes both transitions to multi-party elections as well as the long- term consolidation of democratic gains. Examples are drawn from fieldwork con- ducted in seven African countries—Benin, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. After defining key concepts, this brief then examines how different types of aid have impacted transitions to multi-party democracy, democratic breakdown and www.unu.edu the erosion of civil liberties, vertical in sectors such as education, health, and horizontal accountability, and agriculture, water, sanitation and competitive party systems. A variety transport. The current aid regime has of policy recommendations are sub- been aimed at influencing the Millen- sequently offered that try to reconcile nium Development Goals (MDGs) and existing trade-offs between enhancing the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers aid effectiveness at addressing eco- (PRSPs) through a “partnership model” nomic development outcomes and that attempts to increase harmoniza- using aid to bolster democracy. tion among donors, rectify asymmetric relationships between donors and Development aid and democracy recipients, provide more predictable assistance: does the difference resource flows, and use local systems matter? for programme design, implementation Although imperfect, differentiating and evaluation. Budget support is the between development and democracy main modality underlying the partner- assistance highlights variations in the ship model and it can be disaggregated stated aims of such aid and reflects into general budget support, which is diverse communities of practice. non-earmarked funding to support the Development aid refers to resources government’s policy priorities as out- distributed for the goal of promoting lined in a national development plan growth, reducing poverty, and further- and sectoral budget support, which ing social welfare through interventions specifically funds a development pro- gramme for a particular sector. Democracy assistance refers to technical expertise and material fund- Fig. 1: Democracy aid to sub-Saharan Africa by DAC and multilateral donors ing from donors, party foundations and (commitments in millions of 2010 constant US$) non-profit organizations that is aimed at furthering political liberalization. The visibility of democracy assistance increased during the early 1990s when much of the developing world experienced significant political openings. Africa currently is the region that receives the most democracy assistance. As indi- cated by the solid line in Figure 1, the amount of total democracy assistance committed to Africa by multilateral and DAC donors was almost US$2 billion by 2009. Yet, the dotted line shows that this was still only about 4 per cent of total foreign aid, meaning that development rather than demo- cracy aid has predominated. Notes: Democracy aid as a percentage of total ODA is highlighted by the dotted line and total democracy aid is represented by the solid line. Democracy aid includes support Conceptualizing democratization for anti-corruption, decentralization, democratic participation and civil society, elections, By conceptualizing democratization, legislatures and political parties, legal and judicial development, media, human rights and we can better understand the disparate women’s equality. impacts of the above two categories of Source: Calculated from OECD's Creditor Reporting System Database. 2 Policy Brief www.wider.unu.edu aid. At a basic level, democracy is of inputs and infrastructure, and the achieved as a consequence of transi- adoption of anti-media laws in some tions from a one-party to a multi-party countries. One of the most contentious regime. The consolidation of democracy civil liberties issues relates to lesbian, is a much more long-term process that gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) can move in both positive and negative rights, and 36 African countries directions (see Figure 2). On the one currently have laws criminalizing hand, consolidation implies avoiding homosexuality. a democratic breakdown due to a coup In the area of deepening demo- or reinstatement of one-party rule cracy, one challenge is that political and avoiding democratic erosion, which parties rarely have a defined policy occurs when civil liberties are sup- orientation and opposition is generally pressed, freedom of speech is circum- weak. Power tends to be highly central- scribed, and key political institutions ized around the executive due to legis- are bypassed. On the other hand, con- latures that have limited constitutional solidation involves deepening democracy powers, low salaries for members of by enhancing those institutions and parliament (MPs), and limited support actors that enforce accountability and staff. Likewise, many African courts create a level playing field for multi- are severely underfunded, and judiciar- party competition. ies often are dependent on the execu- There has been progress both tive for financing, which reduces towards and away from these elements judicial independence. of democracy in Africa. During the 1990s, a number of African countries The impact of aid experienced multi-party transitions. Democratic transitions Yet, at least 12 African countries that officially transitioned to multi-party Development aid, rather than demo- democracy in the early 1990s experi- cracy aid, has played a stronger role in enced a breakdown by 2010.3 With facilitating democratic transitions regards to civil liberties, the environ- through at least two channels. One ment for freedom of expression is channel, observed often in the 1990s, generally more favourable today, but has been direct coercion whereby independent media is still hampered donors withhold aid in response to About the Author by poor journalism, insufficient regula- severe human rights abuses and mili- Danielle Resnick is a Research tory capacity of the profession, a lack tary coups. These actions were most Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and formerly a Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. She directed the UNU-WIDER projects Fig. 2: Conceptualizing democratic trajectories “Foreign Aid and Democracy in Africa”, “Decentralization and Service Delivery in African Cities”, and “Africa’s Emerging Middle Class”. She is the author of Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Democratic Trajectories in Africa: Unravelling the Impact of Foreign Aid 3 www.unu.edu effective in promoting democratic In some key instances, however, tious area of intervention. Notwith- change in countries where governments donors have used
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