"Biodun": Make Bad Governance History

"Biodun" is a regular visitor to ConservativeHome and authors her own weblog - Peaks and Troughs.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up to the sad news that Bob Geldof will be shaping the Conservative Party’s policy on Globalisation and Global Poverty.

In the day’s Guardian, Geldof wrote about Live8:

“The single greatest lobby for a political platform ever achieved, it forced on the top table of world politics a hitherto economically unacceptable package of benefits for the poor of Africa.”

Why is this sad news? For one thing, the package of benefits Geldof has forced on to the table has so far been unacceptable for very good reasons.  They help few people in the West, and even fewer in Africa, least of all the poor.

Another reason is that Geldof is a man who does not learn lessons from the past and who does not admit when he is wrong.

In 1985, Live Aid generated a lot of publicity and a lot of money for the famine in Ethiopia.  Yet in spite of, siphoning most of it for their personal use and their genocidal policy of not delivering food aid from abroad to rebel areas, the Mengistu government received little criticism. To this day most Westerners actually believe that the money raised from the concert ended the suffering and famine that actually went on for two more years!

Why is all of Geldof’s talk focused on aid debt relief, and fair trade, when the main problem is bad government and corruption?

This year, distressing images of the famine in Niger shown on TV, were quickly followed by calls for more government aid and private donations. In desperate times, a nation’s leaders are seen asking for help from the international community.  While this was being done by the Red Cross, Niger’s leaders were out and about denying that there was any famine.  To this day, insisting that there is a food surplus in the country, and even spending over $10 million dollars hosting the little-known Afro-Francophone games in the capital, this December, far away from the starving citizens.

Why should the Nigerien government feed its citizens, when the International Community will do it for them without any censure?

Whilst I am not advocating that people should be left to starve, one wonders if democracy would have spread round the world, if someone had been dropping food packages in Paris, just before the French revolution.  The situations are analogous.  A parent who has watched a child starve to death is more likely to be involved in overthrowing an evil government than one who knows that food will fall from the sky, come what may.

There will be many more famines to come as long as the responsibility of feeding a population belongs to Christian Aid and not to the government.

Last month, I went for a talk at Chatham House on Corruption, Looted Assets and the Hypocrisy of the International Community.  The scale of the corruption is so vast, an endless amount of lists, statistics and articles fail to convey just how much looting goes on.  According to Transparency International, the cost of corruption is about $1 trillion dollars in bribes and $30 trillion to the world economy.

Africa’s problems start and end with bad leaders, many receiving support from the West.  I expect the Conservatives to be formulating ground-breaking policies where Labour has failed, ostracizing badly-run countries while forging partnerships with good ones.  They should not be joining a Geldof band-wagon, where Labour is already in the front seat.

Africa’s intellectual giants are in exile in the West, many of them in London, while some governments are headed by men who do not even have a primary school education.  I’d like to see the Tories getting more of such people on board if they are determined to have outsider input in their policies.

Why is Geldof silent on the kleptocracies and kakistocracies raping and looting from their own people?  Leaders who borrowed money from Western banks in their countries’ names and promptly deposited the money back in personal accounts with those same banks?

More than $500 billion dollars was embezzled by Nigerian military dictators since independence.  This is equal to all the money pumped into all of Africa from 1960 to 1997.

Former members of Nigerian governments hold £220 billion in foreign bank accounts, dwarfing the $35 billion required to clear the country’s external debt.  Earlier this year, the Daily Telegrah stated “The looting of Africa's most populous country amounted to a sum equivalent to 300 years of British aid for the continent.”.  It is bad enough that these people steal so much money, even worse that they choose to invest it outside their own countries.

The fact that Africa has been receiving aid since the 1960s and is getting poorer and poorer, year on year seems to have escaped many. 

While trade barriers and high tariffs are indeed a major cause of woe, few know that tariffs within Africa are higher than tariffs between African the West. It is cheaper to fly from Sierra Leone to South Africa via London than it is to fly direct. Cheaper to import Tesco Value tea bags for sale in a Lagos market, than the better quality stuff from Kenya and Ethiopia.  World Bank figures show African nations have tariffs as high as 33.6 percent on agricultural goods from their neighbours.  This drops to an average of 19 percent for goods coming from Europe.

This phenomenon is often referred to as “colo-mentality”, where former colonies see their old rulers as being the best or only possible partners for trade.  Why should the rest of the world trade favourably with Africa when she refuses to do so with herself?

On blogs and message-boards all over the internet, one of the few places where genuine voices of Africans living in Africa can actually be heard, the arguments are all about the governments and the leadership.  Few have heard of Live8, those who have are aghast at what Western citizens think is going to solve their problems.

Two interesting blogs:

• The first by a British man living in Nigeria and the second by an African living in London are just a few of the examples of those who are really affected being completely against aid handouts and dropping debt when it can be repaid by those who stole the money.

If Cameron can use Geldof’s ill-deserved credibility and PR for what it’s worth, while ensuring that the intellectual foundations for the policies come from real economic experts in the UK and the under-developed countries that would be a fantastic achievement. However, judging from Geldof’s comments “What I am trying to do is agree to help formulate a policy that I would agree with." One wonders whether it’s actually Geldof who is using the Tories...

Comments

[Chad]

Well done Biodun. You said on the progcon forum that you might have to write a long article to explain your feelings about this new initiative to work with Geldof and you have certainly explained your concerns clearly.

I'm a natural optimist and hope good will come out of it, but you have certainly made it clear that it is Geldof as much as the Tories who people have a careful eye on.

[malcolm]

We shall see what happens.Like you Chad I'm quite encouraged by this development even though there is I think a fairly high chance that Geldof and Lilley will fall out.
Regarding western governments dealing with African kleptocracies Biodun,what would have them do? Military action is not even a slightly credible proposal so what else?
The people of Niger and Ethopia in 1984 needed help immediately, planning the overthrow of their corrupt governments would not have helped the starving people at all.
At least Geldof can be congratulated for helping to save the lives of thousands of people.

[Chris Palmer]

If you're a Conservative Biodun, why have you campaigned and supported the Liberal Democrats? The two parties are quite different in many respects (despite what others might tell you.) Do you really want to be associating with a party whose vote is made up of 70% (or more) of people who don't know what they're voting for? Those who want the Lib Dems don't understand them. Those that understand the Lib Dems don't want them.

Ok, so Geldoff hasn't admitted his mistakes and the 1985 LiveAid money didn't go to the poor in Ethiopia. But as you said, most people don't know that - so until they find out, Geldoff will be a vote winner.

[Chad]

Chris,

I don't know if you have missed the news, but LibDems are coming over to the progressive conservative agenda. Just check out the LibDem councillors who have responded to Cameron's call to defect and have announced it on progcon. This liberal/conservative fusion is clearly beginning to work.

[Chris Palmer]

I was refering to the party as a whole, not individual members, councillors or MP's.

[Chad]

With the upmost respect Chris, you were not generalising but questioning Biodun directly:

"If you're a Conservative Biodun, why have you campaigned and supported the Liberal Democrats?"

This, to me, looked like you were questioning Biodun's integrity, and I was simply noting that many ex-libdems are now switching sides so past allegiance means nothing except showing the success of the new conservative direction.

[Biodun]

@Chris Palmer,
I'm not sure where you got the impression that I campaigned for the LibDems!

I was too young to vote Conservative in 1997 and in 2001 away at University, I voted for the incumbent Liberal Democrat Candidate, Norman Baker who is still there now with a significant majority because he is a good MP.

I've never campaigned for anybody!

I only joined the Conservative Party in 2005, though I supported them on many issues over the years.

Parties should not take their supporters for granted. I did not sign a contract in blood to vote Conservative in the next election when I joined. I will not hesitate to vote for another party if the Conservatives are unable to show that they can make the UK a better place.

Unlike many people, I do not believe the LibDems or even Labour are wholly bad. I just feel Conservatives are the best party and for that they get my support.

I didn't vote in 2005 as I found out too late that I wasn't on the electoral roll after moving house last year.

@Malcolm,
You said
-------------------------------------------
Regarding western governments dealing with African kleptocracies Biodun,what would have them do?
--------------------------------------------

Stop giving them aid!
Don't drop the debt when you know that the money borrowed is sitting in bank accounts such as Barclays and UBS.

Why is military action the only alternative most people can think of? There is so much else.

[malcolm]

Biodun,how will stop giving aid help the starving?
I agree with you re military action.It is simply not going to happen.Events in Rwanda and currently in Darfur prove that beyond doubt.
'there is so much else'.What else?

[Derek]

Great article, Biodun. While the publicity gained for the Party in inviting Geldof was excellent, I fear it may all end in tears. That is the gamble which DC is taking. Clearly there must be others with more idea than Geldof, but he is the celebrity, and that is what gives the publicity. What is needed is a celebrity who shares the views of Biodun, but where is he or she?

[Derek]

Malcolm - how about freezing the bank accounts of these despots, and then taking back all that they have stripped from their countries?

[Biodun]

-------------------------------------Biodun,how will stop giving aid help the starving?
-------------------------------------

Malcolm,
You're assuming that the aid is reaching the starving in the first place. It's not.

Look at Niger for instance whose leaders are denying that there is a famine and hosting games in the capital far, far, away from the starving people!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4504602.stm

Do you really think that they will spend aid money on a problem they deny even exists?

Time and time again, it's been proved that aid money does not reach those it is meant for.

The money is handed to the government and asit goes from the top down, with every corrupt official dipping their hands into it, there is nothing left for the poor who have no clout to complain.

Also, I think there should be a distinction here between government aid (which is what Geldof is in support of, and which is paid to the corrupt national governments) and private charity donations.

After scandals such as LiveAid, charities do not give money to governments and instead administer the distribution themselves.

However, I still believe that hungry people are angry people and are more likely to overthrow a government than the ones who get molly-coddled by Christian Aid and become aid-dependant.

Food aid also discourages local farmers from producing crops and damages local economies. Who wants to buy food when a free food package is right around the corner?

[Richard Gibbs]

Excellent piece Biodun. I sympathise with your concerns about Geldof; his tangible achievements are minimal and you have documented the flaws in his attitude clearly. But at the end of the day, he is going to be invited to offer his advice on issues, not actually write the manifesto. Some of his ideas will be good, some bad, but the important thing is that the Conservative Party be willing to look outside of its normal borders to get input for future policy. Geldof doesn't admit his mistakes, but we can learn from them just as we can learn from areas he has undoubtedly been successfull - publicising the issue, switching a generation on to the plight of the developing world who wouldn't have been tuned in to politicians and the usual suspects.
As long as we bear all this in mind, I think that on balance his involvement is a good thing.
http://richard-gibbs.blogspot.com/

[malcolm]

Some aid gets through.No charity worker would continue to work in afflicted countries if it did not.
Starving people need relief now ,not at some far off point in the future.I ask again how does cutting off aid benefit starving people.
If we are serious about getting rid of corrupt African leaders then we have to give rebel movements arms.That is assuming the rebels are any better than the people they are trying to replace.
Otherwise you get the tragic situation as exists in Darfur now where we give moral support and practically nothing else.Thus they continue to rebel and are slaughtered in there thousands as they are so badly equiped.
It's a difficult question isn't it? There are no easy answers.People who criticise Bob Geldof had better have better solutions.Have we?

[Biodun]

--------------------------------------------
Some aid gets through.No charity worker would continue to work in afflicted countries if it did not.
--------------------------------------------

Malcolm, I still think you're confusing government aid with private charity.

Charity might feed starving people today, but it doesn't stop them starving again tomorrow, and it creates a new generation of people dependent on charity tomorrow.

Here is one solution.
The British government can stop granting bail to corrupt Africans who are arrested in this country.

They always skip bail.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4478646.stm

The official in the BBC link I have posted above was a state governor caught with £1 million pounds cash in his house.

Yet his bail was set at a mere £500,000. He promptly paid up and skipped the country.

The total amount of money he forfeited came to about £1.25 million.
This is not aid money from the West but oil money belonging to the country.

It has been said that the UK had £1.25 million pounds to gain from granting this man bail than going through a lengthy and expensive court case and jailing him but having to return the money to its rightful owners.

On his return, the governor himself openly thanked Shell, a British company for the pressure they put on the UK government to release him as the money Shell makes daily through its oil exploration activities in that governor's state, dwarfed any amount he has embezzled.

The real work that needs doing is being obscured by pop concerts and wrist bands which achieve nothing but publicity for the wrong solutions.

[Derek]

Let's hope that DC is reading this blog and that he takes on board this excellent article. It would be interesting to get Geldof's reaction, though I doubt he is a reader.

[RobG]

Biodun: agreed with much of the article. But I think that Make Poverty History and Bob Geldof are not pressing for more aid of the kind that has been ineffective in the past. The call is for more and BETTER aid.

In the opening of his The Times article on 14th June Geldof said "How much can we do to stop that and how much can be achieved while there is such egregious corruption in many African governments? The success or failure of our efforts depends heavily on the willingness and ability of African governments to govern effectively and tackle corruption." So I think he (and other campaigners) are well aware of the need to tackle corruption.

[Selsdon Man]

Biodun, your comments are very perceptive. I see, from your blog, that you are also a fan of Hayek who would have loved your article.

[Chris Palmer]

From Biodun's blog: "Whilst I support the Tory party, I have never voted for them, preferring to support the liberal democrats." I used the word "campaign" rather than "support" above. I had remembered reading Biodun's blog previously to this article.

[Chad]

Hi Chris, you should be an investigative reporter. ;-)

The more ex-LibDems the better I say to change the composition of the party and to help ensure the progressive agenda remains. Did you see Adrian's post on ProgCon? The youngest LibDem councillor in Leicestershire defecting to the conservatives amongst others.

I am pleased to say that you are going to be very busy with your "oi, you used to be a libdem" comments.

[Chris Palmer]

We shall see Chad. Defection is not permanent you know. Also, depending on the person - an ex-Lib Dem is still a Lib Dem.

[David Sergeant]

This blog is something that needs to be said and should have been said years ago. We have to face the fact that we have let the left take this issue over. If you read church and Christian Aid literature it is, frankly, dishonest and makes Bob look almost a Tory.

We have to start from where we are if we are going to get a view across and Geldof and Live8 is where we are.

Great stuff. More.

[Jill]

How real is the Tory commitment to Bob Geldof.

Isnt there a danger they may all fall out?

[James Maskell]

A very real danger. If Geldof doesnt get what he wants, he'll go to the papers and say the Tories dont care. Thats front page news and a slap to the face of the Conservative Party that will leave a mark. Of course my scepticism might be wrong and Geldof and the Conservatives might form a great team to do something about world poverty. Its probably more likely that Ill blow up Parliament at the next Queen's Speech.

[Jill]

He's supposed to be working with Lilley

But wasnt it Lilley who sang that conference song attacking Single Mothers? At the time I found it very offensive.

Does Geldof know about this?

How can a caring person like Geldof work with an old-style Tory like Lilley?

[James Maskell]

"single mothers who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue"? Yep, a Gilbert and Sullivan spoof apparently. Im sure Geldof will know about that.

[Jill]

Yes but is that the kind of Toryism we want to be showcased to Geldof.

I am quite a recent member of the Conservative Party but I'm not very happy with what Ive seen at local level.

Its rather different from the David Cameron image.

[James Maskell]

Lets just hope Geldof doesnt know about it and that he hasnt just seen my last mesage here...

Theres a gulf of difference between what we see on national TV or the press and what we see on our streets. I think these things take time to pass down through the various levels of the Party. There are going to be some people who are really going to gag at the changes happening at the moment.

[Oberon Houston]

I think it will take time, but as more and more of us begin to embrace the new direction, and we firm up on what it exactly means, I think we will see it sitting more comfortably with members.

There will always be some that are less interested, ambivalent, sceptical - or even hostile - to the softer side, but I really hope they become rather marginalised. As a party hoping to go into Government, I have been arguing for a long time now that we simply cannot alienate and ignore large sections of our society, and what they feel is important to them in their lives - we need to understand what motivates them to feel this way and develop both time and energy to assure them that a modern Conservative Party will listen to them and will not ride rough-shot over their particular interests or concerns.

We all know that our intentions are at heart good, and also that we are the only party in Britain with really good solutions and policy for improving the lives of everyone (Labour and the Lib Dems are bankrupt). How disappointing then, when for the sake of a few reassuring words and thought, we give the impression that we don’t care.

[Jill]

The majority of members in my association are very old and I don't see how they have changed at all.

One man told me he voted for Cameron because he looked like a winner. He then said that once the Tories won we could deal with ethnic minorities except he wasn't as polite as that.

Nobody ever does anything except a bit of phone-calling at election time. I'm very disappointed with the people I have met. They're all older than me and Im really middle aged now.

[Gregory Lauder-Frost]

For decades now the Conservative Party has been moving Left. They have become just another liberal party. If you study what Toryism was all about, you will be hard-pressed to recognise anything remotely CONSERVative in today's party, and Cameron has simply confirmed that. If the party had any common decency at all it would rename itself. If it was a commercial product they were marketting, they would now be in court under the Trades Description Act.

[Jill]

I was a member of the LibDems but joined the Tories because I believed they really were becoming more liberal.

Im not so sure it is true though. It might be in London but where I live there dont seem to be any new people coming through.

[Chris Palmer]

"For decades now the Conservative Party has been moving Left. They have become just another liberal party" - Gregory Lauder-Frost

Those were my thoughts too.

[Iain Moore]

I agree with much of what Biodun has written, but see it in a wider context for it is not just bad Governance which is Africa’s problem but that Aid is part of the problem as well.

Unfortunately to bring forward the issue of bad Governance is to challenge the orthodoxy that Africa’s problems are wholly to do with colonialism, a matter of faith with the chattering classes , and to suggest Aid is anything other than wonderful is nothing short of heresy.

There isn't much I would add to your case on bad Governance, but would like to put forward this case on Aid. Democracy is frequently argued on the basis of voting in a Government, but it is more than that, for an important part of the democratic process is accountability, that doesn’t just come through the ballot box, but enforced through the taxation process. With Aid, some African countries have more than 50% of their expenditure dependent on Aid, we water down, if not remove their Governments accountability to their citizens, that's not a clever thing to do when Governance is the issue.

To me Aid is like welfare, for Aid creates all the same ills of corruption and dependency. Nobody now thinks welfare is any sort of solution, so why should we be pursing a policy of welfare on an international scale ? It seems like madness to me!

The question I have is, do the Conservatives now still have the balls to take on the hard arguments, or in its new touchy feely New Labour lite clothes, are such challenges unacceptable ?

[Biodun]

You hit the nail right on the head, Iain. I completely agree. For brevity's sake, the post was not as detailed as I wanted.

Other points about aid that you didn't mention are
i) quite often, there are many economic strings attached to it, which benefit the aid-giver more than the aid-receiver.
ii) Lumping 50-odd countries into one continental lump that requires aid, means that the particular problems each country faces are seldom known. Not all countries are aid-dependent, although pretty much all are in debt.

This is in no small part due to the fact that pictures of Africa are always severely distorted by the media to fuel sympathy in the West and make us feel guilty.

You would think that all children in the continent were starving famine victims, amputees or child soldiers!

[Mike Smith]

One person who really knows about helping the starving in Africa is William Deedes, so I trust the new-found Geldof enthusiasts will read his critical comments in today's Telegraph.

Geldof and the EU will ruin us all

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/01/06/do0603.xml

The considered views of Lord Deedes certainly carry more weight than the foul-mouthed ravings of a clapped out rock 'celeb'.

I also trust that those who believe that pouring billions of pounds down a black hole of corruption is somehow a way to win votes have studied the works of the late Peter Bauer.

Professor Bauer's take on overseas aid was the only view fit to be held by anybody calling himself a Conservative.

I doubt that Mr Cameron has read Bauer, but should that surprise anybody?

[abdihakim]

hi i want you to tell me or send me a information about
history and development of marketting in Ethiopia

in 1947- 1974
and
1974-1991