African Politics - Aid Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

African Politics - Aid - Essay Example Aid was started in Africa in order to facilitate development projects after colonialism. Colonialism had impoverished African countries and the western nations came in with the concept of aid to assist. The intentions were pure and there was initially no agenda behind the money being provided. As Michelle (2013) stipulates in the journal article, there were big development ideas that were to be funded by the aid money but what lacked is the technical expertise. Aid was to be used in various developmental areas such as education, health, infrastructural development among others. Education is the baseline of every country whether developed or developing. It is therefore in the best interest of every nation to have its entire people educated if it is to have developments in the future and use it to enhance their livelihoods. Africa has been left behind for decades on the issue of access to education and this has led to aid being given and debt accrued in the need to educate their public. The dire need to raise the education standards led to need to borrow money from the Bretton Woods institutions such as the World Bank in order to complete the project. The project ended up consuming more and having no much return benefits to the intended public and a debt accrued. Drazen, (2002) explains how debts from the aid continued to increase with no hopes of them being paid back especially with the oil crises which led to an increase in food prices as well as the deplorable conditions in these African nations that have led to an increase in poverty. The Bretton Woods institutions together with the western countries that supplied the money for the aid came up with the concept of structural adjustment programs as the condition for being granted the aid. The African leaders desperate for the money went along with this program that saw massive layoffs and retrenchments taking place in the public sector. The structural programs were