Når det går så dårligt for det enorme ørkenland i Vestafrika skyldes det ikke militærkup og islamister, snarere at myndighederne er ualmindeligt ineffektive og korrupte og ude af stand til at fordele den beskedne økonomiske vækst – trods stor bistand.
BAMAKO, 5 August 2013 (IRIN): There is little discernible (påviselig) economic infrastructure on the 635 km drive from Mali’s capital, Bamako, to the central town of Mopti, except for speed bumps and checkpoints where local vendors (sælgere) congregate to target vehicles as they slow down.
Rusted signs (skilte) and faded banners from international donors dot the scrubland, advertising development projects either long abandoned or never undertaken.
It is difficult to reconcile the poverty and dysfunction in Mali with the pre-conflict and pre-coup narrative of development success told by multilateral organizations and international NGOs alike.
Right up until the ouster of President Amadou Toumani Touré in March 2012, the West African state was a darling of the aid community, lauded for having strung together multiple successful democratic transitions since 1991.
But the data tell a different story.
At best, aid to Mali has been ineffective from an economic or institutional development perspective.
This enables corruption, undermining the government’s will and ability to raise revenue through productive means or taxation, and insulating it from accountability to the population, according to analysts and observers.
At worst, these conditions directly led to the conflict in the north and political crisis in Bamako.
Money for nothing
Mali is one of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, ranking 182 out of 186 on the 2012 Human Development Index (HDI).
The vast Sahelian country is placed as number 34 out of the 45 countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of 2012 GDP purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita (indbygger), and has a negative real GDP growth rate (negativ økonomisk vækstrate).
As such, the country is heavily dependent on foreign aid, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimating in 2008 that donors provided 60 to 80 percent of Mali’s special investment budget.
Though the country did achieve substantial GDP growth rates after the 1990s, the growth failed to improve the quality of life of most Malians.
This suggests that the growth was most likely due to currency devaluation and gold exports rather than real economic production, said a working paper of the United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER).
Further, anecdotal evidence (stikprøver) suggests that aid has become something of a self-perpetuating system (selvforstærkende evighedsmaskine) in Mali, generating employment while the dollars are turned on, but failing to create the conditions for sustainable economic growth, poverty reduction or institutional development.
“When the NGOs left, we were hit twice,” said a youth advocate in Mopti, speaking of the retreat of donors after the 2012 coup, noting:
“Of course the aid projects were important, but the unemployment effects were worse – up to 30 percent of youth worked for humanitarian organizations.”
These economic conditions cannot be attributed to the coup leaders, the separatist Tuareg rebels or Islamist militias; the country has languished at the bottom of the development pile since long before the 2012 coup and even before the HDI was first published in 1990.
Crisis of confidence
Mali has fared little better in terms of its political and public sector institutional development.
From 2003 to 2011, the country consistently ranked as mediocre (middelmådig) in popular perceptions of public sector integrity, and in any given year was worse than at least half of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa.
Tellingly, the single largest increase in public confidence, a 21,4 percent improvement, came after the 2012 coup.
Further, for every election cycle from 1992 to 2007, Mali largely trailed its Sahel neighbours in voter turnout for both parliamentary and presidential contests.
According to a February 2013 Malian opinion poll, the two most frequently cited perceived causes of the country’s various crises were “lack of patriotism among leaders” and “weakness of the state” (31 percent and 16 percent, respectively).
A full 76 percent of respondents were unable to name their political representatives.
Aid and accountability
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98528/analysis-mali-s-aid-problem
