How imperialist ‘aid’ blocks development in Africa

How imperialist ‘aid’ blocks
development in Africa
(Books of the Month column)

Printed below is an excerpt from We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions, a collection of speeches by Thomas Sankara, leader of the Burkina Faso revolution. The French edition is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for April. A popular uprising on Aug. 4, 1983, in the former French colony in West Africa, then called Upper Volta, brought to power a revolutionary government that carried out an ambitious program of land reform, reforestation to stop the advance of the desert and to counter famine, broad measures aimed at women’s emancipation, and a fight against imperialist oppression and capitalist exploitation. Sankara was assassinated on Oct. 5, 1987, during a military coup that destroyed the revolutionary government. The piece below is from a speech by Sankara to the UN General Assembly on Oct. 4, 1984. Copyright © 2002 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY THOMAS SANKARA
We represented a wondrous condensation, the epitome of all the calamities that have ever befallen the so-called developing countries. The example of foreign aid, presented as a panacea and often heralded without rhyme or reason, bears eloquent witness to this fact. Very few countries have been inundated like mine with all kinds of aid. Theoretically, this aid is supposed to work in the interests of our development. In the case of what was formerly Upper Volta, one searches in vain for a sign of anything having to do with development. The men in power, either out of naiveté or class selfishness, could not or would not take control of this influx from abroad, understand its significance, or raise demands in the interests of our people.

In his book, Le Sahel demain [The Sahel of tomorrow], Jacques Giri, with a good deal of common sense, analyzes a table published in 1983 by the Sahel Club, and draws the conclusion that because of its nature and the mechanisms in place, aid to the Sahel helps only with bare survival. Thirty percent of this aid, he stresses, serves simply to keep the Sahel alive. According to Jacques Giri, the only goal of this foreign aid is to continue developing nonproductive sectors, saddling our meager budgets with unbearably heavy expenditures, disorganizing our countryside, widening our balance of trade deficit, and accelerating our indebtedness.

Just a few images to describe the former Upper Volta: 7 million inhabitants, with over 6 million peasants; an infant mortality rate estimated at 180 per 1,000; an average life expectancy limited to 40 years; an illiteracy rate of up to 98 percent, if we define as literate anyone who can read, write, and speak a language; 1 doctor for 50,000 inhabitants; 16 percent of school-age youth attending school; and, finally, a per capita Gross Domestic Product of 53,356 CFA francs, or barely more than 100 U.S. dollars.

The diagnosis was clearly somber. The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political.

Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid. But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs.

We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being. We chose to apply new techniques. We chose to look for forms of organization better suited to our civilization, flatly and definitively rejecting all forms of outside diktats, in order to lay the foundations for achieving a level of dignity equal to our ambitions. Refusing to accept a state of survival, easing the pressures, liberating our countryside from medieval stagnation or even regression, democratizing our society, opening minds to a world of collective responsibility in order to dare to invent the future. Shattering the administrative apparatus, then rebuilding it with a new kind of government employee, immersing our army in the people through productive labor and reminding it constantly that without patriotic political education, a soldier is only a potential criminal. Such is our political program.

On the level of economic management, we’re learning to live modestly, to accept and impose austerity on ourselves in order to be able to carry out ambitious projects. Thanks to the example of the National Solidarity Fund, which is financed by voluntary contributions, we’re already beginning to find answers to the harsh questions posed by the drought. We have supported and applied the Alma Ata principles by widening the range of primary health-care services. We’ve adopted the GOBI FFF Strategy recommended by UNICEF as our own, making it government policy.¹

Through the United Nations Sahel Office (UNSO), we believe the UN should enable the countries affected by the drought to set up a medium- and long-term plan to achieve food self-sufficiency.

To prepare for the twenty-first century, we have launched a huge campaign to educate and train our children in a new kind of school, financed by the creation of a special “Teach our children” raffle. Through the salutary action of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, we have launched a vast program to build public housing (500 units in three months), roads, small reservoirs, and so on. Our economic aspiration is to create a situation where every Burkinabè can at least use his brain and hands to invent and create enough to ensure him two meals a day and drinking water.

We swear, we proclaim, that from now on nothing in Burkina Faso will be done without the participation of the Burkinabè. Nothing that we have not first decided and worked out ourselves. There will be no further assaults on our sense of decency and our dignity.

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1. The Alma Ata principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) emphasized proper nutrition, safe water, sanitation systems, maternal and child health care, immunization, and a reserve of basic medicine. UNICEF’s GOBI FFF Strategy, focused on women and children, includes treating diarrhea-caused dehydration with an inexpensive solution of clean water, glucose, and salts; breastfeeding; immunization against six major communicable diseases; and education.

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