26 June 2002

World Leaders Asked to Direct More Aid to African Democracies

Freedom House issues statement on G-8 Summit

Washington -- As representatives of the world's leading industrialized powers gather this week in Alberta, Canada, the U.S.-based monitoring group Freedom House called on the G-8 leaders June 25 to fulfill their pledges to increase aid to Africa and to establish a clear set of incentives that reward states on the continent that observe democratic practices.

Freedom House said in a statement that U.S. President George Bush's recently announced Millennium Challenge Account initiative is a welcome first step in officially linking democracy with development assistance. It seeks to target aid to states that "rule justly" and fight corruption, rather than those that are unaccountable and redirect aid away from development. The G-8 meeting should adopt a similar, multilateral approach for aid disbursements to Africa and to the world's other poor countries, said Freedom House.

The lag in African development is due in large part to closed and repressive political systems, civil wars, and high degrees of corruption, Freedom House asserts. G-8 leaders should pledge to establish a minimum set of standards, such as free and fair elections and freedom of expression, in order for countries to qualify for development aid.

According to Freedom House data, only 11 percent of sub-Saharan Africa's population lives under governments that respect a broad range of political and civil liberties. Africa, according to Freedom House, is also the least democratic region in the world, with only nine of 53 countries (Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Sao Tome, and South Africa) offering citizens a broad array of freedoms.

However, authoritarian African regimes continue to receive large sums of official international aid. In 2000, according to World Bank figures, a number of Africa's repressive regimes received significantly more aid per capita than the less than $24 average allocated by the international community to sub-Saharan Africa's democratic states.

Those countries receiving more aid per capita than the more free states, according to Freedom House, include Cameroon, Eritrea, and Equatorial Guinea.

Freedom House rated all three countries "Not Free" in its latest annual global survey, Freedom in the World. The latest Freedom House reports on Africa can be found at: www.freedomhouse.org/research/africa.htm.

"Instead of continuing to subsidize corrupt tyrannies, the G-8 should use its summit to declare a policy of explicitly rewarding and supporting democratic states and states moving decisively in the direction of respect for human rights and political pluralism," said Freedom House President Adrian Karatnycky.

Aid to closed societies should also be more carefully targeted, Freedom House said. Such G-8 aid, it said, should support independent civil society and free media, and, if possible, democratic forces opposing entrenched tyrannical governments.

The G-8 is composed of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.