Africa needs 'trade' not 'aid'

Entrepreneurial aid schemes are believed to be the way to alleviate Africa from poverty, experts say. The argument was discussed in June at this year’s World Economic Forum in Cape Town, when a call to help reduce poverty in developing countries was addressed. As part of their ‘Business Strategies to Enhance Food Value Chains and Empower the Poor’ the WEF’s aim is to expand rural retail networks, help train farmers, and encourage sourcing from local producers.

The Danish government also created The Africa Commission to combat poverty in developing countries, but experts have criticised it for only investing the $3 billion guarantee facility promised into small businesses, ignoring the majority of Africa’s entrepreneurs who are small independent farmers.

A topic which has caused controversy from both sides of the argument, former Goldman Sachs strategist, Dambisa Moyo’s book ‘Dead Aid’ ascertains that western aid keeps African countries in poverty, rather than easing the results of it. Author of award-winning book ‘The Bottom Billion’, Paul Collier also says rather controversially, “Aid is to buy influence rather than have an effect in the country.”
As an alternative, many experts have spoken about the benefits of setting up entrepreneurial opportunities for individuals through private lending, providing them with the money and tools to be able to start their own businesses and repay their loans. Many companies have been established just for this purpose, and distance themselves from “charity” status.

International Development Enterprises is an example of one of the organisations set up for this function. Technically a charity, IDE equips farmers in rural areas of Africa and Asia with cheap and affordable agricultural tools through the private sector. IDE also helps set up business links at regional markets and works closely with local non-governmental organisations to help farmers establish their own trade. Lewis Temple, chief executive of IDE believes this is the best way forward to eradicate poverty amongst farmers in poor countries. “We provide income opportunities for farmers to earn sustainable and long term cash income.” He adds, “[It is] a more dignified approach that enables farmers to use their own skills and enterprise to challenge poverty. A donation of cash is a short term fix that humiliates the farmer and diminishes their abilities to lift themselves out of poverty.”

Shared Interest also plays a big part in financing disadvantaged communities by providing credit when locals cannot get it from banks that choose to help bigger companies, and allowing them to “trade their way out of poverty”. Bega Kwa Bega, meaning “shoulder to shoulder”, a Catholic handicraft group aims to provide the Korogocho slums in Nairobi, Kenya with a means of trading with other countries. Before Shared Interest, their limited resources for handicrafts meant that they could not include any more young women and girls into the group. Shared Interest provided them with a Term Loan to purchase sewing machines and other equipment for production, which resulted in expanding the group to include more young women and girls, and also increased their production for trade.

Ignatius Mayero the Project Co-ordinator for Bega Kwa Bega says, “I think this is the most important step that we have made, with a loan we have managed to purchase sewing machines, [and] we have started a cake making project that will accommodate other girls and also act as a supplementary unit of production beside our work of making handicrafts. This will help our women to continue working as they wait for the orders since there [are] some seasons that we don’t receive orders.” Shared Interest’s loan has also paid for computers, a digital camera, and material for the stock.

Charities have fought back against the rising animosity towards aid, as more and more people comment on where the aid is going. Coco, a charity which focuses on education and healthcare for children in developing countries, specifies that all donations are used to “maximum effect” by co-operating with local community organisations in order to get the most from the donations for the children.

Lucy Philipson, Coco’s Operations Manager thinks that aid has been unfairly dismissed. “Entrepreneurial investment in developing countries is undoubtedly a necessity for growth, poverty alleviation and development. However, whilst investment in trade is important, trade alone cannot fight poverty and aid, both emergency and development, is still needed as long as developing countries exist.”

There are areas where aid is still very much needed whilst trade is heavily promoted. Many countries dubbed “fragile states” such as Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe, still rely heavily on aid reaching the right places even within the country, where there is no fear of corruption and government misspending. Charities have been lambasted for not distinguishing between development aid and emergency aid, by people who are critical of whether the aid really reaches the right people.
Ms Philipson believes that it is the minority of charities who give aid a bad name. “It is corrupt governments, unaccountable aid agencies and a general failure to be transparent that gives aid a bad name and not all aid organisations operate without morals or ethics, some of us genuinely work in partnership with communities to alleviate poverty.”

Where aid money is directed is a huge factor to how countries can be improved, and experts are arguing now that the problem lies in a “one size fits all” strategy formed by European governments towards aid for developing countries. Countries such as Tanzania who have a straight forward government who invest heavily on the needs of civilians benefit from aid being transferred directly to the government. In countries such as Zimbabwe, however, when aid is given to the government there is no visible improvement to the infrastructure of the country, and while doctors are being given expensive cars by Mugabe, teachers and civil servants are still being deprived their wages.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported this year that most rich countries still have a long way to go in order to meet their pledges to the developing world before the economic slump. OECD member countries which include the US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK gave on average 0.3 percent of their national income as aid last year, which was still far below the United Nations target of 0.7 percent. China’s “no strings attached” investments have therefore been seen as a form of aid to the countries.

Aid needs to be carefully dispensed, investing in civilians struggling to get by in developing countries is another way to help expand their opportunities and provide them with a business plan.

Blood, Sweat and Takeaways... but seriously where do you think your cheap meat came from?

Ethical clothing. Fair trade. British meat. All words we've heard together and often put in sentences to make us feel guilty about our consumption, but shouldn't we already care? The best part of this is, that the more awareness is raised, the more people are starting to take note. All the information a consumer needs is at their fingertips, quite literally, nowadays with the internet at our dispense.

So why does it take a BBC TV series such as 'Blood, Sweat and Takeways' to raise the plight for Thai rice farmers, sex workers and factory workers? Is there really not enough being done for people to see that absolutely everything we do in the UK has a knock-on effect on someone, somewhere in a developing country?

Take our t-shirts for example. Did you know 22% of ALL pesticides are sprayed on cotton? Or that 20,000 farmers die each year in developing countries from agricultural pesticides?

Or what about your Primark jewellery made by thousands of people every day? Do you know that the person who made your bead necklace eats far less than the recommended 2,000 calories a day? Or that despite the extremely physical 14 hour work days in a sweatshop they get only 3 days off a month?


Yet Fair trade goods, ethically sourced products, and ways to help support and take people out of sweatshop labour is an easier option than it may seem.

People Tree (peopletree.co.uk) are an ethical and organic label who pay all their artisans a fair wage to support their families for making their clothing and handicrafts. They often have online sales too, and their clothing is affordable at the best of times.

Monkee Genes (monkeegenes.co.uk) are an ethical and organic jeans and cords company who produce some of their products in Britain. Their jeans come in fashionable colours and 'supa-skinny' fit. Perfect.

Kenyan handicraft group Bega kwa Bega which means 'shoulder to shoulder' take hundreds of women from the slums of Nairobi each year to teach them trades such as tie dye; scarf making; sewing; and knitting. They ship to as many businesses as possible in the UK.

I know my friends always say to me, 'When you only have a certain amount, how can you stop shopping at cheap places?' Here's how.

Once you start looking, there is a world of opportunity available to you at a fair price, and ensures the maker of your product was entitled an even fairer wage. I used to get paid £6 an hour in a part-time job. Some labourers get paid £6 a week. Really, who's the one losing out?

So here's a friendly tip, just so you know I'm not getting on your case for no reason; ASOS.com often have Fairtrade certified labels on their website, and if you Google 'Fair Trade clothing', 1,620,000 hits come up. American Apparel are ethically sourced and Fairtrade certified. Arcadia Group which includes Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge and the notorious Topshop have all signed up to the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan to reduce clothing waste, pay fair wages, and stop using pesticides eventually. The Fairtrade Foundation have pledged to increase the volume of Fairtrade cotton products to at least 10 per cent of cotton clothing in the UK by 2012.

Now is the time to stop making excuses, and make a difference. Why? Because it costs you a lot less than it costs them.