Experts at The University of Tennessee are wary of the promised benefits of debt relief and aid to African nations that was agreed upon at the G8 summit’s meeting July 6-8.

The G8 is composed of the world’s eight wealthiest nations, including the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.

Asafa Jalata, professor of sociology, spoke about the impact of aid proposed by the G8 nations.

“The impact of the promised $220 billion in aid to Africa by 2015 will be unknown. Debt relief and aid by themselves will not solve the complex problems of African underdevelopment,” he said. “If Western countries want to solve African problems, they need to establish political and economic policies that will be implemented by democratic governments.”

The G8 communiqué, in which the goals for global climate changes and international assistance to Africa were laid out and signed by the leaders of the eight nations, explains the amount of aid they propose to send to African nations.

“The commitments of the G8 and other donors will lead to an increase in official development assistance to Africa of $25 billion a year by 2010, more than doubling aid to Africa compared to 2004,” the communiqué reads.

In addition to the billions of dollars in aid, the G8 agreed to cancel 100 percent of debt owed by 18 African nations to the International Monetary Fund, the International Development Association and the African Development Fund.

Sujit Das, visiting assistant professor of economics, spoke about the policy of debt relief in international trade.

“Debt relief is not a very good idea, but it is a common practice in global finance,” he said. “Although there was a claim for immediate elimination of all debt service charges from all loans from Africa, the G8 summit did not conclude on that point. Rather, the G8 said not all loans, and not to all nations and not now. I support that decision.”

The G8 specified in its communiqué that only nations that plan to work toward economic growth and poverty reduction, more democratic, accountable and transparent government reforms and to proper handling of the aid will receive debt relief. Additionally, the G8 leaves it up to the developing nations to grow their own economies and devise their own economic strategies to rely less and less on international aid.

“’The more the better’ policy is not good for all cases. Rather, effective use of loan and debt make the country stronger and increases growth,” Das said. “I believe this should be a long-term commitment from both debtors and creditors.”

Catherine Higgs, associate professor of history, spoke about the importance of debt relief.

“While often cast in moral terms, debt relief has very practical implications for the rest of the world, since the primary goal of debt relief is to stabilize African economies by encouraging political and policy reform as well as political and especially economic transparency,” she said.

Higgs went on to discuss the method of aid disbursement to African nations.

“The focus is on partnership between Western donors and African countries. This takes care and diplomacy,” she said. “Western donors want to make sure that there is transparency, that money can be traced and results produced; Africans, understandably, given the long history of the encounter with the West, see this concern as over paternalistic.

“Thus, partnership is emphasized, and the 18 countries designated for debt relief have demonstrated a commitment to transparency in oversight of the funding that satisfies the G8 members.”

However, she cautioned that the time frame might be a little unrealistic.

“Ten years is a very short time period to see the kinds of transformations the members of the G8 are hoping for. A longer commitment on both sides of the proposed partnership is very likely to be needed to produce the desired results.”

Jalata also voiced concern for the distribution of aid to the African nations.

In the past, he said, “[I]nternational aid has been mainly used in African countries to build repressive government structures, to enrich state elites and to pay Western experts. Without benefiting from this aid, ordinary African people have been forced to pay debt to big powers. Consequently, international aid has contributed to the underdevelopment of Africa.”

“To make this debt relief important for African countries, Western governments must stop supporting authoritarian governments and pursue the policy of promoting genuine democracy in Africa. Without accountable democratic governments in Africa, the debt relief will not change Africa.”

Higgs points to one example of Western-funded corruption, specifically in Zaire.

The United States, she said, provided financial assistance to the government of Zaire under Mobuto Sese Seko who allegedly embezzled billions of dollars and who was forced out of office following the end of the Cold War. As a result, the country has been torn by civil wars since then and has only recently signed a peace treaty among the fighting parties.

Das agreed that oversight of aid distribution is key to the success of the program.

“Both debtor and creditor has equal responsibility to identify the priority sectors before aid disbursement. For Africa, the sectors are telecommunications, health (AIDS/HIV), privatization, global business and infrastructure development,” he said.

Higgs added to the list of sectors set to receive aid.

“Other issues include education and gender equality, the latter of which to be addressed by offering more girls access to education,” she said. “It’s not a lot of money for such a huge and varied agenda.”

A summary by the chair of the G8 explains that the desired effects of the aid and debt relief could: “Double the size of Africa’s economy and trade by 2015 … lift tens of millions of people out of poverty every year, save millions of lives a year … provide as close as possible to universal access to treatment for AIDS by 2010 … [and] bring about an end to conflict in Africa.”

Higgs spoke about what the G8’s decisions could mean for the continent.

“The combination of public (international) aid targeted at encouraging transparency at the political and policy level, and private investment in African economies might well usher in a true renaissance (as envisioned by the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki) for the African continent,” she said.

Das advised that G8 nations could “monitor the utilization of aid and ensure more accountability to the government, extend the practice of more democracy and/or more liberalization, reduce corruption, [pursue] financial sector reform [and the] liberalization or more openness of international trade” to encourage greater economic growth.

All three experts agreed that the G8 decisions were important to the future of the African continent, though Jalata voiced some caution.

“Overall, I think the G8 agreement is a positive policy provided that it is not going to be hijacked by corrupt Western experts and African state elites,” he said.