What impact will UK cuts have on Africa?

I think it's high time Africans realize that foriegn aid is not sustainable. More so, there isn't any empirical data to demonstrate that aid has significantly pulled any developing country out of poverty. Britain is under no legal obligation to provide aid to Africa, we should rather be interested in fair trade practices and knowledge transfer! My view about Britain and in deed any other western country wouldn't change; aid has always been about interests and if the west feel there are not interests at stake in Africa and switch off the aid flow, then Africa need to develop an alternative survival strategy. This should be a wake-up call for African countries reliant on British; It's simply not sustainable!
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This single biggest budget cuts would definitely have many impacts on Africa and the world at large. Considering that many Africans are in Britain working and do send or repatriate part of their earnings back to Africa. Many of them would be laid off at their various work places which would prevent the inflow of money into Africa which would affect the individual beneficiaries of those inflows.And more so, African governments could loose aid from Britain if they do not follow or meet certain benchmarks under the new budget cuts. Upon all I personal view Britain as Britain because they need to make sure that their economy dances to their own tune!

Another one of "those" questions.. How are UK cuts supposed to impact an entire continent? Didnt know that the English arm reaches that far as to bring an entire continent to it's knees just because it is going through tough economical times. Well, Africans in the Uk-disapora will find a way to make money and support their loved-ones back home, cuts or no cuts.

The cuts in the UK will have very little impact on African economies. mostly due to the fact that Britain is not a major trading partner in Africa.

In my opinion, the aid that Britain gives to Africa already has very little effect on the masses in Africa, as it always seem to end up in the wrong hands.

As a Commonwealth resident I strongly belief that the UK needs to focus more on getting their deficit in order, before they try to give money which they don't have, to crooked third world politicians.

How very depressingly predictable of the BBC - an organization convinced beyond a scintilla of doubt, that someone, somewhere, somehow, must always owe Africa something of some sort; a manifestly racist view which reinforces Africa's supposed exceptionalism. Must every event on this planet, or policy adopted by some foreign country, always have consequences for Africa?

If the cuts are going to prevent the UK from buying tea, coffee or the British visiting my country Kenya as tourists, then there is cause for alarm. But if the cuts are going to reduce the amount of aid to my country then i dont care. Millions of dollars flow into Africa from multilateral and bilateral donors yearly but its impact is nowhere. I continue seeing poor infrastructure, deaths from curable diseases, malnutrition with flies holding conferences on mouths and eyes of children. We need trade with UK not aid. In fact in Kenya, we survived without aid for 10 years under the corrupt regime of KANU and i believe we shouldnt have gone back to donors with begging bowls.

The UK and the rest of donors are at liberty. Let them freeze all aid to Africa and the continent will seek sustainable strategies of surviving in the global jungle.

This is nonsense. How can the government can make massive cuts to our national economy and yet ring fence money sent abroad? It is madness. The cuts should be across the board. No wonder people are already losing faith in the coalition.

To FIDGET: I'm not sure whose fault this is, but I think you really do need some basic education about foreign aid. Contrary to common assumptions, it has never been informed by altruism, as your post suggests. There are different types of aid, to be sure, but much of it is often "tied," i.e., conditional upon the "recipient" government agreeing to spend the money (if it comes in form of cash, that is) on goods/services produced in the "donor" country's economy - often at grossly inflated costs. Add to this the battalions of "consultants," "advisers," "administrators" and sundry "experts" (who invariably come from the "donor" country), and it becomes clear who the primary beneficiary often is.

Don't take my word for it, just visit the relevant department's (DFID's) website and see for yourself who wins these aid-related contracts. The Americans are typically more forthright about it: by law, you have to be a US company or be closely associated with it to administer its aid programmes. Yes, from time to time, the odd vial of penicillin does reach those who need it, but aid primarily benefits the domestic economies of their "donors." They create jobs where none might have existed, while creating the cruel illusion of altruism towards some wretched souls in poor countries. This one of the major reasons (corruption on the part of the "recipient" governments being the other) why a place like Africa remains mired in misery in spite of billions supposedly disbursed in aid by wealthy nations.

Countries like Nigeria can't continue to rely on Aids. It will be more productive if UK can help fight corruption among the ruling elites in Nigeria.

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Just when will Africa be independent of this aids? Its so much of a wonder when politicians cry for pay rise and want new cars to ride in. These aids are not sustinable so I think the time has now come for Africa to reconsider it's decision to rely on foriegn aid. The time is now for Africa to back to the drawing board and plan very well.

The UK cuts will negatively impact Africa since it means less money going to the continent. It is not surprising since the British people are also set-up for drastic changes in government jobs and services. What is important is to make sure whatever aid given reaches the people and is utilized properly. The nation needs to do more than have BBC publish an unconfirmed Human Rights Report (HRW) such as the recent one on Ethiopia which stated that “Aid underwrites Repression In Ethiopia”. For unknown reason, BBC also failed to report a subsequent statement by the Development Assistance Group (DAG) which categorically stated that HRW’s assessment was totally false.
It is also a little puzzling why the UK is not represented in DAG, a group which comprises of 26 bilateral and multilateral development agencies including the Austrian Embassy Development Cooperation, Belgium Embassy ,CIDA ,Denmark Embassy ,DFID ,European Commission, Finland Embassy, French Embassy, German Embassy - German Development Cooperation and IMF. The group makes sure aid funds are utilized properly. They have done a good job so far. So, who are we to believe now a group of 26 nations and humanitarian organizations or the HR / BBC partners. Hmmm!

Not sure but i think this question is for the president of Africa whoever he or she or maybe, or possibly Ghadaffi can answer this. BBC and its producers are so out of touch with African reality its almost like watching a horse die.. its painful to witness its slow irrelevance for its continued negative portrayal of the continent. BBC in all respect is a world leader and as such the millions of Africans on the continent would like the bbc to find out how much aid the UK sent to Africa and where it ended up since it began sending aid. please master do this for us poor africans. Ps I would be impressed if you posted this

I strongly agree with AKPAN.

There is a lot of ignorance about the nature of aid, both in donor and reciepient countries.

90% + of aid is government to government or multilateral agency ( World Bank, IMF etc ) to government. Most of this aid consists of soft loans. These are loans with a lower interest rate than commercial loans. These loans have to be paid back. This is why African governments have to have their debts forgiven from time to time.

When aid money is stolen, it still has to be paid back, although the ordinary citizen hasn't benefited from it. It is the ordinary citizens' taxes which are used to pay back the loans. This is morally reprehensible.

AKPAN has enumerated the conditions attached to aid packages. It is clear that it is not the reciepient country which benefits from aid.

As AKPAN points out, aid has never been about altruism. Aid has always been about the self interest of the donor.

How the Cuts will impact on African countries, depends on which sector we are looking at and which african country we are talking about.If it is in the area of aids, the cut may affect some african and asian countries that survive on aids. For other countries, that does not survive on aids like Nigeria, egypt, south africa etc. i don,t see how the cut will affect them. Appart from this aids in itself is a means of providing employment for the citizens of donor countries and not really to benefit the recepient. The goods and services that are usually provided as part of the so called aids are supplied by the companies indirectly owned by the politicians in the donor countries. The supplies are often times provided at inflated costs. Sometimes it looks to me as an indirect way of funding corruption and in some cases to serve as compensation for those that funded elections of the politicians in the donor countries. As part of the conspiracy to justify the need for the Aids, various media propagandas, overexagerations and lies are fed to the citizens, with regards to poverty and, HIV/AIDS in Africa. For example, I read in a British newspaper today that the UK government gave £114m to Nigeria in aids for 2009/2010. To justify the spending, It was stated that 72m Nigerian, out of a population of 154m survive on less than $1 (150 naira) a day. That is laughable. If this is the true, all the 72m would have been dead, because I dont see how anyone can survive on that amount of money. Besides this, the £114m aid is not even up to the annual budget of a local government in Ngeria. The truth is that over 70% of Nigerian are rural farmers. They do not need much money to survive, as they all leave in their owned farm Houses and eat what they produced from their owned land. Does it mean that those who do not live in the city are poor?. The £114m said to have been allocated to Nigeria should be withdrawn and used to provide employment for us living the UK.

Research shows that donors mainly write cheques to ease their guilt, boost their egos, or to a group of friends. So, why complain? Play by their rules.

The aid from the west is directly went to the pocket of the African dictators not to the poor. my country got the fourth big amount of western aid in the world but still we have more than 27million( figure from current government document I got) people who live under absolute poverty line, who can not eat at least once a day. Recently HRW has published a late but still eye opening report how the aid money is used by the tyrants to suppress its critics and the poor. The west has a well documented history of double standard democracy as long as their interest is respected. The west did not provide their aid money to help the poor as history show again and again; time and time. So the African poor will not face any problem from the British budget cut. But really the African dictators the western slaves might be affected from the British cut.

Regards

Aklog