In yesterday's New York Times, FP editor-in-chief Moisès Naim nicely dissected the growing problem of what he termed "rogue aid"—development aid by dictatorships like China and Venezuela with no strings and little social conscience:
In recent years, wealthy nondemocratic regimes have begun to undermine development policy through their own activist aid programs. Call it rogue aid. It is development assistance that is nondemocratic in origin and nontransparent in practice, and its effect is typically to stifle real progress while hurting ordinary citizens. China is actively backing such deals throughout Africa; its financing of roads, electrical plants, ports and the like boomed from $700 million in 2003 to nearly $3 billion for each of the past two years.
Naim acknowledges, of course, that Western governments have often dabbled in the strategic aid business, particularly during the Cold War. And today's Christian Science Monitor has an interesting take on France's struggle with its own rogue aid problem, which has come to a head at this year's Franco-African summit in Cannes. For years, France has given succor to shady Francophone regimes in a bid to maintain influence in its erstwhile colonial realm. It's a practice that's becoming untenable at home, however:
PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP
African protesters, along with international aid organizations, led protests outside of the Cannes summit this week, and France's ties with illiberal African regimes has become a hot-button topic in the ongoing presidential race to replace President Jacques Chirac. "By favoring personal friendships to the detriment of the general interest, the presidential practice has tarnished the image of our country, which is associated in African minds with the most questionable regimes on the continent," wrote French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, in an editorial for the Témoignage Chrétien, a Catholic weekly.
France's bout of conscience makes Naim's point well. For all its flaws, Western development aid has inched toward transparency. Beijing and Caracas are nowhere close.
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