Aid, development and politics in Southern Africa: A critical look at new conditionalities in official development assistance

Abstract

Development aid totalling more than 25 billion rand a year is currently flowing from the North to the Southern African region. Several countries in the region are extremely de pendent on these financial transfers and foreign donors have become important players in domestic decision making. In recent years, Northern donors have increasingly demanded major political and administrative reforms in recipient countries as a condition for con tinued aid. This article examines these new political conditionalities, drawing on data from sub-Saharan and Southern Africa to illustrate certain key issues.

Democracy Assistance for Botswana: Maintaining the Status Quo in a Peripheral Capitalist Country

“…Two policies, political conditionality and democracy assistance, were adopted by these actors to drive their new agenda. Development assistance was suspended for countries averse to democratization and gripped by bad governance, corruption, and human rights violations (Baylies, 1995; Tjonneland, 1998). On the other hand, through democracy assistance, the donor democracies, multilateral agencies, Western political party foundations, think tanks, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and some private organizations have provided practical, advisory, technical, and financial support aimed at strengthening democracy and good governance in democratic and democratizing countries (Burnell, 2000; Santiso, 2001).…”