Ahead of this week's G8 conference in Scotland, the world's richest nations forgave billions in debt to the world's poorest. Great news, right? Not necessarily. Decades of Western aid have done little to ease suffering in Africa -- indeed the situation is worse than ever. Is it time for the West to rethink its aid strategy?
The aid workers are thirsty and the beer is flowing: There is a party mood in Rumbak, the city of tents which at one time almost became the capital of Southern Sudan. It's is a bit like the end of the day atmosphere at a trade fair: The stands have closed down and people have knocked off work.
All over the place people in sandals and washed-out T-shirts emblazoned with meaningful slogans ("no cattle plague -- more milk") and where they are stationed ("Somalia, Uganda, Sudan"), dart down side streets. The aid organizations' colored pennants flutter in the hot evening wind.
Several times a day local people heave heavy crates out of the rickety old planes which have just landed. Obscure airlines use these planes, before they are sent to the scrap yard, to turn a fast buck. Rumbak, which until recently was a God-forsaken hole, is now booming.
After over 20 years of civil war between the North and the South in Sudan, a peace agreement has now been reached. In April it was decided in Oslo that Sudan would be granted $4.5 billion in reconstruction aid. A decision which, although greeted joyfully by many people, is viewed with skepticism by Norway's minister for development aid, Hilde Frafjord Johnson: "Much more aid has been agreed on than I think we actually need."
This sudden wealth is a cause for concern even among the aid workers themselves. "If we carry on like this," says Lammart Zwaagstra, who comes from the Netherlands and works for the EU's department for humanitarian aid, "then people will never stand on their own two feet."
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