Foreign aid-dependency comes under scrutiny at Kigali African economic conference

Abstract

The issue of foreign aid dependency by African countries came under heavy scrutiny on the second day of the seventh African Economic Conference which opened in Kigali, Rwanda Tuesday, as expert sparred over whether and how it should be scrapped. Long advocated by many African countries, it was the first time that a major public discussion on the issue has been held since the 2011 Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, according to ECA’s Information and Communication Service. The consensus on development effectiveness of the African Union and its New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) Programme has always been that African countries reduce aid dependency and ultimately exit aid towards development effectiveness”. The paper investigates the attributes of this group of countries which initially were heavily aid-dependent but managed to exit from it as compared to countries with persistent aid-dependence.