Abstract
The European Commission has promised to provide African countries with budget support to facilitate poverty eradication and the broader achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Moreover, European Union officials state that modern ‘poverty reduction’ budget support aligns with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development norms of country-ownership. In particular, they assure recipients that this aid modality will not be used to coerce African states to pursue second-generation liberalisation measures. Accordingly, European Union actors in the Post-Washington Consensus appear to have learned the lessons of structural adjustment reforms undertaken in the 1980s and 1990s, opting now to promote untied aid mechanisms. This article argues, however, that European Union budget support is still very much tied to premature trade opening and economic liberalisation in Africa. Examining the cases of Tunisia, Ghana and Uganda, it points to the strategic utilisation of budget aid as a means of donor leverage for free market reform detrimental to the needs of poorer citizens. In this context, the article argues that Nkrumah’s concept of ‘neo-colonial’ states bears much significance for a contemporary evaluation of European Union budget support to Africa.
Introduction
Budget support — government-to-government financial transfers from donor to recipient — has been hailed as a progressive instrument for development in the global South. Ostensibly aligning with norms of ‘country-ownership’, general budget support (GBS) and sector budget support (SBS) are viewed as a means of supporting indigenous pro-poor policies (OECD, 2005). In particular, this aid modality nominally enables poorer states to achieve humanitarian aspirations free from tied project aid. In addition, budget support is understood to be a more reliable form of assistance that facilitates progressive policy dialogue on good governance and human rights.
The European Commission is a prominent advocate of such ‘poverty reduction’ budget support in its engagement with African states, whether those north or south of the Sahara (2008a, 2008b, 2013a). 1 Commissioner Michel notably promised African countries that budget support would be substantially enhanced under the 10th European Development Fund (10th EDF, 2007–2013): ‘budget support and more of it is the only answer. For this reason I have decided to increase the proportion of budget support from 20% of our funding to 50%’ (European Commission, 2008b: 4). This confirmed an upward trend in European Union (EU) budget support to the global South, which grew from €1 billion to €3.8 billion from 2000 to 2008, with a lion’s share distributed to Africa (Kitt, 2010: 14).
This article argues that while the European Commission discursively places budget support on a pro-poor development terrain, nevertheless, much of its finances go towards the implementation of regressive trade opening and economic liberalisation in Africa. While the European Commission, in alignment with a broader Post-Washington Consensus, argues that it has learned the lessons of past structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), nevertheless, its current budget support does much to extend developmentally dubious free market reforms. The article thus examines EU budget support to Tunisia, Uganda and Ghana to illustrate the regressive utilisations of this aid modality in Africa. Moreover, the article considers ensuing theoretical questions as to the position of developing countries in the Post-Washington Consensus, with exploration of Nkrumah and his warnings concerning ‘neo-colonialism’. It contends that Nkrumah’s critique of foreign aid bears much resonance in the evaluation of EU budget support. Set alongside more recent scholarship that questions the analytical relevance of an ‘internal–external distinction’ — notably Harrison (2001) and Bayart (2007) — Nkrumah’s treatise more usefully captures the coercive/co-optive nature of EU budget support. The article is structured as follows. The first section examines budget support as a preferred aid modality within the Post-Washington Consensus. The article then considers European institutions’ narrative linkages of budget support to poverty reduction. Thereafter, it explores EU actors’ role in promoting regressive free market reforms via this aid modality. The final section then considers the ‘internal–external distinction’ (qua Harrison and Bayart) and the relevance of Nkrumah’s analysis for a modern understanding of EU budget support.
Budget support and the Post-Washington Consensus
Budget support has become popular within donor circles in the Post-Washington Consensus. Knoll (2008: 1), in a report for UNCTAD, explains that ‘budget support is on the rise, particularly in Africa. In 2005, 17 African countries received approximately US $2.6 billion in budget support from the donor community.’ This reflects the fact that many donors view budget support as possessing several advantages over project aid. Primarily, budget support is understood to enhance country-ownership in alignment with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Paris Declaration. 2 Donors’ allocation of monies directly to recipient treasuries is seen to respect developing countries’ sovereignty and to enable them to freely pursue their own objectives. Whereas project aid had often been ‘tied’ — notoriously to the employment of contractors from the donor country — budget support has instead apparently ‘contributed to increasing partner countries’ control over aid funds’ (Caputo et al., 2011: 1).
Furthermore, budget support is promoted as a modality that allows for faster and more predictable allocations of larger amounts of aid monies. Upon meeting ex ante conditions concerning human rights and good governance, recipients receive a substantial proportion of budget support upfront (World Bank and African Development Bank, 2010: 4). This fixed tranche regularly ranges from between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of EU budget support. The remainder is then granted upon reviews of progress towards agreed targets (the variable tranche). This is applauded by certain non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Oxfam, who welcome donors’ disbursement of aid to ‘country systems’ (cited in UK Parliament, 2012). In addition, budget support is seen as preferable to project aid in that it allows for on going policy dialogue regarding good governance, human rights and macro economic policy. More pragmatically, donors recognise that past forms of project aid were often forms of budget support in all but name (Collier, n.d.)
It is important to note, however, that budget support is not a ‘new’ form of assistance. This aid modality in fact dates back to structural adjustment reforms implemented in the 1980s and 1990s as part of the Washington Consensus. International financial institutions (IFIs) gave direct payments to stabilise developing states in the aftermath of the petrodollar debt crisis. Donors now, however, consciously seek to differentiate modern ‘poverty reduction’ budget support from SAP predecessors via discursive emphasis on country-ownership and poverty eradication. This reflects broader attempts to ‘learn the lessons’ of structural adjustment. Namely, donors recognise that the tying of budget aid to economic conditionalities was often done at the expense of social indicators. IFIs granted aid to national budgets under SAPs while stipulating the need for rapid tariff liberalisation, state divestment from parastatals and deregulation of the private sector. In Mozambique, for example, the Economic Rehabilitation Programme (PRE) initiated in 1987 with IMF support resulted in an average fall of tariff rates of 7.9 per cent (Falck, 2001: 174). In many cases, such reforms resulted in social hardship for the poorest. Indeed, many African states experienced high redundancies as vital sectors floundered in free market contexts. Pomerantz (2005: 53) explains in a World Bank report, for instance, that SAP reforms in the case of Mozambique’s cashew sector led to deindustrialisation and collapse. Pomerantz was herself the World Bank’s Country Manager and Country Director of Zambia and Mozambique (1994–2000) and thus oversaw implementation of such reforms.
Significantly, such economic decline was repeated in countries such as Kenya where relaxation of import controls under SAPs led to the flooding of the domestic textiles market with cheap, second-hand clothes from Europe. This resulted in job losses for approximately 70,000 workers (Republic of Kenya, 2001). A number of recent IFI reports consequently admit that SAP reforms often had regressive impacts upon the poorest in African countries. Koeberle and Walliser (2006: 267) of the World Bank explain that ‘[economic] conditionality was critical for the advancement of first-generation reforms. However, at times, the reforms were insufficiently owned by the country, subject to policy reversals, and perceived as excessive or intrusive.’ Pomerantz (2005: 53) goes further and explains that the opprobrium associated with SAP reforms make second-generation economic liberalisation all the more difficult for donors to pursue in the Post-Washington Consensus.
It is in this historical context that the donor community claims that modern poverty reduction budget support will be geared towards fulfilment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through support to national poverty reduction strategies orientated towards health, education and vital infrastructure. While certain macro-economic conditions will still have to be met — notably in terms of IMF approval of anti-inflationary measures — nevertheless, there is marked emphasis on budget support as an untied and pro-poor aid modality. Mike Hammond of the UK Department for International Development (Hammond, 2006: 92), for example, explains that budget support is now geared towards the ‘fight against poverty’ since donors have now focused payments ‘on pro-poor spending’. Donors stress, moreover, that respect for country-ownership will ensure that they will not pressurise governments to undertake premature trade opening and economic liberalisation. In the wake of SAPs, Koeberle and Walliser (2006: 274) claim that ‘trade policy issues … have become less important, following the … reduction of tariff barriers across the world … conditionality on trade has declined significantly since the mid-1980s’. Overall, therefore, poverty reduction budget support will enable developing countries to fund social programmes rather than be used as leverage for trade opening and economic liberalisation.
EU budget support and poverty reduction in Africa
The European Commission has been a prominent advocate of this broader donor turn to (ostensibly) pro-poor and untied budget support. Notably, its Budget Support Guidelines state that ‘the general objective of budget support is to contribute to eradicate poverty, pursue sustainable economic growth and build and consolidate democracies’ (2012a: 2). In alignment with wider donor narratives, the European Commission (2013a) also favourably contrasts ‘poverty reduction’ budget support with forms of project aid that were tied to commercial conditionalities (European Commission, 2008b: 4). Commissioner Michel notably articulated a moral case here for a shift towards progressive budget support:
[Budget support is the] best way to apply what is for me the sacred principle of ownership. Only by respecting this principle can we enable our partners to decide on their priorities for themselves, to feel that they are masters of their own destiny and to ensure the success of their actions. (European Commission, 2008b: foreword)
Insisting on country-ownership, moreover, the European Commission rejects the notion that budget support can be used to ‘buy’ liberalisation in developing countries. With clear implications for a discursive distancing from SAPs, Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner explained that budget support is ‘a more credible means of promoting ownership and, therefore, of [guaranteeing] … greater effectiveness’ (European Commission, 2008c). EU officials also make clear that evaluations of budget support will be based on evidence and not on ‘ideology’, again with clear resonance for downplaying past concerns surrounding SAP neoliberal reforms (European Commission, 2008b: 62). They also make clear that Europe’s ‘approach upholds the principle of ownership of policies by countries themselves and leaves space for a national democratic debate’ (2008b: 62). Furthermore, the European Commission (2008a: 13) assures recipients that ‘policies and agendas are no longer dictated from outside’.
Somewhat in tension with country-ownership, however, the European Commission simultaneously makes clear that there are ‘no blank cheques’. It emphasises the contractual nature of budget support and maintains that there must be ‘shared commitment to fundamental values of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law’ (2011a: 3). EU actors cite here the variable tranche as a means of holding recipients to account. Rather than solely rely on full suspension as means of ultimate sanction, actors may withhold a proportion of budget aid. According to EU officials, this ‘steers a middle course’ between loss of donor credibility and dramatic reduction of aid monies (European Commission, 2006: 85). More broadly, policy dialogue ensures that EU donors can warn recipients if they appear to stray too far from (ostensibly shared) fundamental values.
In terms of macro economic policy, moreover, the European Commission (2008a: 9) states that budget support must go towards a poverty strategy ‘targeting growth and improvement in general living conditions’. Consequently, the recipient government must demonstrate commitment to ‘a stability orientated macroeconomic policy, seeking for example improvements in indicators, such as inflation, debt and the exchange rate’ (2008a: 9). The European Commission goes on to explain that IMF reviews play an important role in budget support processes, but that they are not necessarily a pre-condition for disbursement. Crucially, however, the European Commission carefully avoids any discursive linkage between modern budget support and economic liberalisation. Demonstrating the success of this pro-poor emphasis, Oxfam (2008: 3), a long-term critic of the EU’s pursuit of market-opening in the global South, in fact praises Europe for avoiding free market conditionalities in its provision of budget support:
By tying budget support to outcomes in health and education, the Commission stands in contrast with some of the other providers of budget support, such as the World Bank, which include many economic policy conditions in their aid packages. Oxfam believes aid should not be tied to potentially harmful economic policy conditions, such as privatisation of companies and services or trade liberalisation.
Interestingly, Oxfam’s concerns in relation to IFIs reflect scepticism among certain academics and NGOs as to whether ‘new’ poverty reduction budget support departs from aid conditionality. A report by Nilsson (2004: 49), for instance, warns that while ‘indications seem to show that … there is a growing [policy] dialogue … [nevertheless] conditionality has by no means disappeared and reports have even warned that it may be increasing’. This is supported in more explicit terms by Hauck et al. (2005: 15), who argue that while this aid modality may grant recipient governments more autonomy in the implementation of agreed priorities, nevertheless:
Countries lose some measure of autonomy over the overall budget allocation process because of the close involvement of donors through dialogue and a certain push towards accepting and executing wider reforms at the macro-level by the partner government … [there are] also worries that governments may become subject to political pressures and leverage exercised through joint donor approaches.
This view of creeping conditionality is corroborated by Alvarez (2010: 3), who explains that since this form of aid is granted to governments whose institutional capacities are already weak, domestic officials’ vulnerability in terms of political co-option is markedly high. Moreover, conditionalities are, for Knoll (2008: 12), ideologically motivated in terms of a free market orientation not dissimilar to SAPs in the 1980s and 1990s. In tension with Oxfam’s statement, however, there is mounting evidence that the European Commission has itself utilised budget support to push for fulsome liberalisation, with regressive consequences for poverty reduction (and political sovereignty) in African contexts.
EU budget support and free market reform
The European Commission has regularly stated its preference for African countries’ ‘smooth and gradual’ integration into global markets. Through the pursuit of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, in particular, EU actors have made clear that trade liberalisation and wider free market reforms are central to poverty reduction. 3 EU officials deny, however, that modern budget support is used to ‘buy’ liberalisation and state that this pro-poor aid modality is not tied to ideological or neoliberal conditionalities. Nevertheless, when the utilisation of budget support is more closely examined, it becomes clear that EU aid monies are being linked to trade opening and economic liberalisation, with regressive consequences for ‘the poor’.
Notably in the case of Tunisia, one of Europe’s long-standing strategic partners in North Africa, a recent evaluation by consultancy firm DRN (2011: 8) makes clear that EU GBS and SBS disbursements of around €732 million from 1996 to 2008 have been fully linked to economic and trade liberalisation. Indeed, as Table 1 indicates, substantial amounts of budget support have been committed since the late 1990s in a Post-Washington Consensus setting. Moreover, budget support assistance is significant in relation to total EU aid flows, accounting for 61 per cent of a total €1,197 million of EU aid to Tunisia in this time frame. The DRN report explains that EU budget support promoted tariff dismantling in the context of Tunisia’s accession to free trade agreements in the era of the recently deposed Ben Ali regime. Moreover, it facilitated privatisation of state companies in the early 2000s as part of National Indicative Programmes (NIPs) that sought to ‘support economic reforms [including] … privatisation, deregulation’ (2011: 5). EU budget support channelled through successive ‘MEDA’ programmes, furthermore, sought to prepare ground for the creation of a ‘Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area’ (European Commission, 2007a). In the second MEDA initiative from 2002 to 2006, this prioritised the ‘liberalisation of foreign trade’ as well as ‘economic reforms’, including further tariff reductions (DRN, 2011: 6). As recently as 2005, meanwhile, EU budget support towards the fourth Tunisian Structural Adjustment Facility (SAF IV) sought to ‘improve … competitiveness in the Tunisian economy, in order to encourage its integration in the Free Trade Agreement with the EU and in global markets’ (2011: 10, emphasis added). This is confirmed by Caputo et al. (2011: 3), who state that EU budget support has been utilised in pursuit of far-reaching liberalisation in Tunisia.
GBS and EU aid to Tunisia (1996–2008).
Source: DRN (2011: 1).
In contrast to modern narratives of ‘poverty reduction’ budget support, however, Europe’s promotion of economic liberalisation has created greater social uncertainties in Tunisia. As Kouboub (2012: 306) explains, economic turbulence, including youth unemployment rates of around 25 per cent, are ‘the culmination of … neoliberal economic policies that have contributed to a rise in income inequality, the lack of upward mobility for educated youth and the removal of social safety nets for the working class’. This view is upheld by Amnesty International (2008: 1–5) with reference to foreign direct investment in the liberalised phosphate sector, which brought about significant opportunities for regime enrichment in open markets. Few gains, however, accrued to poorer Tunisians denied employment in the industry by fraudulent recruitment processes. Local communities, meanwhile, faced the environmental consequences of such operations without adequate investment into schools, water supplies or education. This dislocation led to protests in the Gafsa region in 2008 (where extraction takes place) as unemployment levels reached between 30 and 40 per cent (2008: 1–5). These events foreshadowed the Arab Spring in which protestors demonstrated a clear capacity to resist free market models seemingly imposed by a regime and its foreign patrons.
Moreover, EU-sponsored liberalisation has encouraged Tunisia’s over-reliance on exports, which led to substantial vulnerability in the global recession of 2008. By 2009, the value of Tunisian world exports fell by 22 per cent, exacerbating the existing jobs crisis and increasing tension in the lead-up to the events of the Arab Spring (Hanieh, 2011: 21). Europe’s sponsorship of further Tunisian liberalisation within a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area, meanwhile, threatens to cement income inequalities in the agricultural sector. Smallholders will be least able to cope with an influx of cheap agricultural produce from EU countries, compounding pre-existing anxieties concerning the privatisation of state farms and the withdrawal of state subsidies:
[Agricultural] workers have become beggars … you find people with one thousand hectares while others won’t have one hectare.… Those who got fired like me always go the administration asking for work. We tell them: ‘you fired us, so give me something to buy bread’. Nothing happens. The cooperative used to employ eighty people, now only thirty work there. Those thirty are almost always women because they are paid less. (Interview cited in King, 2003: 1)
Worryingly, these uncertainties extend to Tunisia’s manufacturing base. War on Want (2009: 18) explain that the achievement of a full Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area ‘is predicted to cause the near collapse’ of key manufacturing sectors. The food, beverages and tobacco sectors in Tunisia, for instance, are expected to experience a fall of production of around 94.1 per cent (2009: 18). In addition, it appears that the European Commission has recently utilised budget support as leverage — incentivising the new government’s commitment to further liberalisation. Notably, the European Commission pledged an additional €68 million of budget support for ‘economic recovery’ in 2012 — only one week on from the Tunisian government’s signing of a so-called Privileged Partnership mandating further movement towards the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area (European Commission, 2012b). Despite EU support, however, free market agendas remain highly contested, with local activists criticising the new government’s compliance with neoliberal norms during the World Social Forum held in Tunis in March 2013 (Common Dreams, 2013).
Uganda also provides much insight into the utilisation of modern EU budget support for pursuit of regressive liberalisation, in this case, in a least-developed, ‘donor-friendly’ East African state. Budget support from donors has been high in this country context, at around 50 per cent of government expenditure at its peak (World Bank, 2005). EU budget support itself, meanwhile, accounts for around 55 per cent of a total €460.9 million earmarked for Uganda under the 10th EDF (European Commission, 2007b: 28). This reflects a considerable increase in budget support in relation to historical proportions, as Table 2 shows. Uganda has also recently been awarded ‘MDG Contract’ status, receiving a high fixed tranche of 70 per cent of total EU budget aid. Nevertheless, there has been disquiet concerning President Museveni’s authoritarianism, particularly in light of the 2011 elections in which the opposition alleged that state resources had been used to skew campaigning (Human Rights Watch, 2011). Meanwhile, the EU suspended budget support in 2012 in relation to corruption — although aid was resumed in 2013 (URN, 2013).
GBS and EU aid to Uganda (1995–2013).
Note: ETR – End of term review.
Source: European Commission (2013b).
Notwithstanding these issues, there are mounting concerns surrounding EU budget support’s promotion of premature trade opening and economic liberalisation in Uganda. The most recent Uganda–EU Country Strategy Paper (CSP), which governs budget support, makes clear that EU actors expect Uganda to deepen liberalisation reforms. The CSP states that poverty alleviation can only be achieved through ‘economic growth supported by sound governance and macroeconomic policies’, while praising the Museveni regime for undertaking ‘policies promoting economic liberalisation and private-sector-based, export-led growth’ (European Commission, 2007b: 8–12). The document also outlines that budget support is granted in expectation of Uganda’s acceptance of a full EPA involving far-reaching tariff dismantling. Moreover, the CSP makes clear that budget support towards Uganda’s trade capacity is important to sustain ‘in the context of the EPAs’ and that such support will ‘be important in terms of justifying the successful implementation of the EPAs’ (2007b: 24) Furthermore, the CSP acknowledges that support to trade capacity, predominantly in terms of budget support, will provide necessary ‘leverage’ for stimulating Uganda’s ‘sustainable economic growth’, involving, crucially, its ‘progressive integration in the region and in world markets’ (2007b: 29, emphasis added).
This promotion of trade opening and economic liberalisation is concerning when evidence is considered in terms of predicted impacts. Notably, Stevens and Kennan (2005) find that African countries will lose up to 40 per cent of total tariff revenues under a full EPA. Hinkle et al. (2003) state that this is particularly worrying given that many states are dependent upon tariff revenues for around 7–10 per cent of total governance resources, rising to between 15 and 20 per cent for least-developed countries. The situation is even more alarming for Uganda given that 31.5 per cent of all government revenue is derived from import tariffs (Boysen and Matthews, 2009). EU budget support would thus appear as a substitute for lost tariff revenues and as leverage for premature EPA liberalisation rather than as ‘new’ money for poverty reduction. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), meanwhile, predicts that full EPAs will increase European manufacturing and non-manufacturing exports to the ACP grouping by up to 20 per cent (cited in Perez, 2006). Nevertheless, in the Ugandan context, there are grave reservations as to the impact on sensitive sectors, including poultry, textiles and cereals. Kwa (2007) explains that Ugandan agricultural smallholders will be particularly impacted:
Apart from certain agricultural products for which exports are projected to remain robust, namely fish, coffee, tea, tobacco and horticulture, certain food exports look set to shrink significantly. In cereals, exports from Uganda are projected to decrease from the US$104,000 a year (calculated from 1998–2002 figures) to US$3,000 a year by the end of the EPA implementation period. Exports of oil seeds and oleaginous fruits to the EU are also projected to decline to about a third of exports pre-EPAs from US$233,000 to US$78,000.
There are also serious concerns that further trade liberalisation will exacerbate food insecurity in Uganda, heightening pre-existing tensions among ethnic groups (Kwa, 2007). Accordingly, there is significant resistance from many Ugandan trade unionists and civil society representatives to the imposition of EU-sponsored free trade agreements. With parallels to Tunisia, this has involved mobilisation of disenchanted youth. Notably, the Makerere University Development Studies Association has recently partnered with SEATINI-Uganda (a prominent trade justice NGO) to arrange student dialogues on EPA impacts (SEATINI, 2013).
The European Commission’s (2010) utilisation of budget support to promote regressive liberalisation is further illustrated in the case of Ghana — a West African middle-income developing state which recently signed an MDG Contract involving EU budget support of €174 million in 2009–2010 alone. Again, this is significant in terms of historical aid flows, as outlined in Table 3. In this country context, EU actors hold significant influence as a high-disbursing institution within the Multi-Donor Budget Support (MDBS) group. 4 Contrary to norms of country-ownership, however, the MDBS group actively opposed the Ghanaian government’s attempts to re orientate poverty reduction plans towards enhanced state interventionism in the economy as part of an ambitious growth strategy in the mid-2000s. This attempted policy volte-face took place following the re-election of President Kufuor in 2004. European officials alongside MDBS colleagues especially opposed interventionist policies proposed under the ‘President’s Special Initiatives’ (PSIs) that sought to enact public–private partnerships in leading export sectors. Further contravening free market norms, Kufuor’s government also sought to establish a comprehensive Trade Sector Support Programme geared towards an enhanced interventionist stance in promoting key industries (Whitfield and Jones, 2009: 202–206).
GBS and EU aid to Ghana (1995–2013).
Note: *Indicative.
Source: European Commission (2002, 2007d).
Crucially for an understanding of European budget support, Whitfield and Jones (2009: 205) explain that leading donors (including the EU) utilised their position to actively discourage this policy shift in Ghana. In practical terms, the MDBS group opposed the financial priorities of key ministries and withheld budget support until government subsidies on kerosene (a symbolic point of donor–recipient contention) were removed. Whitfield and Jones (2009: 205) state here that ‘[donors] openly disagreed with the way that the [Trade] Ministry prioritised funding for 2006, and Ministry Staff went round in circles trying to get a prioritisation that the donors would approve’. In the case of the kerosene subsidies, meanwhile, Gerster (n.d.) confirms that ‘a conflictual tug of war took place in 2004/05’, which eventually resulted in the Ghanaian government’s capitulation. This in turn led to fuel price hikes and citizen riots in Accra — again demonstrating resistance to imposition of free market policies, with parallels to Tunisia and Uganda. Gerster further explains that EU officials refused to disburse budget support when the Ghanaian government narrowly missed a deadline for a disbursement trigger.
Convincingly, Whitfield and Jones (2009: 205) argue in this context that budget support is ‘not a step towards greater democratic debate over public policies: it emphasises accountability to donors, and economic policy is decided in closed arenas’. This view is echoed by Gerster (n.d.), who argues that Ghana’s policy dialogue with EU and MDBS donors regularly resulted in power plays in which the recipient was left at a considerable strategic disadvantage. Somewhat oddly, however, the European Commission (2008d) sufficiently reconciled itself towards the Ghanaian state’s performance to grant that country an MDG Contract in 2009. This is significant given that the MDG Contract grants the recipient country a fixed tranche of 70 per cent — an increase from the 50 per cent ordinarily granted. Notwithstanding past disagreements, Ghana was awarded this status in 2009 — only one year after its agreement to initial a controversial EPA. Again, this raises significant questions as to the utilisation of budget support as a de facto leverage mechanism.
As in the cases of Tunisia and Uganda, moreover, there is much evidence that the promotion of liberalisation has seriously undermined poverty reduction in Ghana. Notably, Ghanaian trade unions and civil society bodies have protested tariff liberalisation in the poultry sector undertaken since 2003. Trade union officials state that up to 200,000 jobs have effectively been ‘exported’ upon the removal of tariffs that previously shielded domestic producers from cheaper imports from the EU (Bagooro, 2011: 9–13). Trade unions fear that further tariff reductions will seal the fate of the industry. Moreover, the European Commission’s own Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) finds that Ghana will stand to lose up to $27.3 million upon the removal of import tariffs. Budget support would once more appear to be less ‘new’ money for poverty reduction than a means of subsidising losses that will be felt upon premature free market reforms. As demonstrated by the riots on the streets of Accra, moreover, such reforms engender social unrest amidst dislocation for vulnerable peoples.
EU budget support and neo-colonialism in Africa?
It is important to restate that the use of budget support to exert donor pressure on economic governance has raised concerns about violations of country-ownership. Whitfield and Jones (2009: 201) remark that ‘while these [budget support] structures may facilitate working across government ministries … they also increase donors’ access to policy discussions’ and hence increase their power in policy making processes. This perspective is confirmed by De Renzio and Hanlon (2007: 26), who state that this aid modality increases donor involvement ‘in all stages of the policy process’ and puts pressure on recipients ‘from within’. Danielson and Eriksson-Skoog (2005: 155), meanwhile, theorise about a ‘soft state … a state that is not independent of the pressures from the influence of interest groups’. They explain that developing-country governments become dependent on budget support and thereafter are passive in the formulation of policy. This creates a vicious cycle in which budget support leads to recipient passivity, which in turn encourages greater donor penetration of governance processes.
These discussions have significant parallels to wider debates surrounding developing- country sovereignty in the Post-Washington Consensus. Harrison (2001), notably, has had marked impact on Africanist scholarship in terms of his concept of a governance state. This is defined in terms of deep donor penetration of recipient governance networks to the extent that the ‘internal–external distinction’ becomes redundant. With emphasis on structural reforms, Harrison (2001: 661) explains that African governments internalise neoliberal agendas to such a degree that the internal–external distinction is no longer analytically useful. Donors operate within the state and should not be conceptualised as an external force violating sovereignty. Instead, we must consider the symbiosis that exists between donor and recipient as officials from both sides work together to enact free market agendas. Such debates are clearly relevant in the context of EU budget support. Indeed, it might be argued that budget support helps to construct governance states in Africa. In the case of Tunisia, for instance, where the Ben Ali regime supported liberalisation, the internal–external distinction might at first seem somewhat redundant.
Harrison’s theoretical contribution, meanwhile, itself has certain parallels to Bayart (2007) and his concept of extraversion. Again downplaying more traditional Africanist accounts that assume the existence of an internal–external conflict between donor and recipient, Bayart emphasises that African officials actively seek out aid as a means of maintaining patronage networks. African elites’ manipulations of external donors should therefore be understood in terms of deliberate power strategies (2007: 217). This concept of extraversion also bears some relevance for analysis of EU budget support. Indeed, it might be argued that African elites seek out budget aid in order to buttress their own governance structures. Again, in the case of the Ben Ali regime, Tunisian elites consciously mirrored European language of free market growth in order to demonstrate suitability for budget support.
However, in cases such as Ghana, where government elites attempted to enact more interventionist approaches that contradicted donor free market norms, it would seem that the so-called internal–external distinction does in fact (re)gain significance. In this case, Ghanaian elites sought to dilute donor liberalisation agendas and to (re)state the need for a more proactive industrial policy geared towards government assistance for prioritised enterprises. Accordingly, donors stated their antipathy towards the PSIs, in particular, since this programme appeared to ‘pick winners’ contrary to free market norms. Moreover, they actively posed barriers to ministries’ interventionist agendas, utilising budget support as leverage.
Given the realities of a conflictual internal–external dimension in this Ghanaian case, it is arguably the work of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, on neo-colonial states which provides the most useful theoretical insights for an analysis of EU budget support. Nkrumah’s (1965) Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism highlighted the internal–external distinction and denounced the strategic machinations of external powers in attempting to maintain control over African former colonies. It defined the neo-colonial danger in the following terms: ‘the essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality, its economic system and thus its political polity is directed from outside’ (1965: ix). Focusing on European ‘Association’ with francophone former colonies — and with parallels to Kautsky’s exploration of ultra-imperialism — Nkrumah further asserted that ‘the limited neo-colonialism of the French period is now being merged in the collective neo-colonialism of the European Common Market’ (1965: 19). 5
Primarily, Nkrumah argued that erstwhile colonial powers would seek to reconfigure political influence over newly ‘liberated’ territories via the activities of their corporate entities. European private sector agencies, in particular, would seek to maintain strategic access to key raw materials in the Cold War. Once entrenched within their host nation, foreign business would sway indigenous elites either through the lubrication of patronage networks or through the funding of rebel groups deemed to be more compliant. Importantly for an analysis of EU budget support, however, Nkrumah also anticipated the usage of formal European aid as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for continued external manipulation. With much resonance for an understanding of contemporary budget support, he predicted that ‘control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured by payments towards the costs of running the State’ (1965: x). In this vein, he maintained that it was ‘unreasonable to suppose that any foreign power, affluent enough to give aid to an African state, would not expect some measure of consideration of favour’ (cited in Wallerstein, 1967: 519). Namely, aid payments would be tied to economic interests, facilitating later corporate penetration. This would entrench external donors and private sector entities capable of demeaning Africa’s political sovereignty.
Nkrumah’s diagnosis of neo-colonialism has much resonance in the current analysis of EU budget support to Ghana. While his tendency to emphasise the pre-eminence of corporate entities requires qualification in light of government-to-government budget support, nevertheless, the EU does appear to exert a neo-colonial control through this aid modality. Interestingly, Vengroff (1975: 236) describes this direct mode of neo-colonial influence as an ‘older’ and ‘more parochial form’ compared to a so-called ‘more modern form’ in which the indirect influence of corporate power prevails. It might be more accurate in the Post-Washington Consensus, however, to describe these as simultaneous and complementary processes — with government aid and corporate influence both reinforcing the hegemony of Western neo-colonial interests in states such as Ghana. In terms of the more direct form of influence exerted via budget support, the EU alongside the IFIs utilised policy dialogue to pressurise Ghanaian ministers to jettison an interventionist economic strategy. This instance of a collective (neo-)colonialism overrode the Ghanaian government’s original priority to build the competitiveness of key export sectors prior to full integration into globalised markets. EU donors proactively utilised budget support as leverage here — challenging ministries’ spending priorities and ultimately withholding aid until government plans fell into line with donor free market norms. Furthermore, European donors appeared to pursue a neo-colonial economic agenda predicted by Nkrumah (1965: x–xi) — that is, opening up the Ghanaian market for entry of European imports and foreign investment, while diminishing that country’s attempts to build up domestic agriculture and industry (such as poultry) that might compete with European commerce.
Even in the cases of Tunisia and Uganda, however, where a conflictual internal–external dimension is less immediately visible, Nkrumah’s concept of the neo-colonial state still helps us to make sense of EU leverage via modern budget support. Nkrumah warned of elite co-optation and a divorce between leaders participating in the neo-colonial regime and the economic interests of their citizenry. This echoed Fanon, who warned of a ‘comprador class’ that would share in ‘some of the profits which imperialism drains from Africa’ (cited in Biney, 2012: 133). Specifically, Nkrumah (1965: xv) explained that elites would benefit from European patronage and that there would thus be a convergence of mutual economic interests in maintaining colonial patterns of trade and finance. Asymmetric trading arrangements, in particular, would continue if co-opted elites benefited from graft and corporate payments. In this sense, the internal–external dimension became less explicit in terms of open confrontation between neo-colonial forces and co-opted African elites. Nevertheless, it remained analytically valid (and important) to make a distinction between the external economic interest (in maintaining exploitative economic patterns) and the internal economic interest of the wider domestic citizenry (in building autonomous economies based on thriving domestic agriculture and industrial development).
In the case of the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia, for instance, it can be argued that a co-opted elite sought to implement market-opening in alignment with the priorities of EU donors regardless of negative economic consequences for poorer citizens. This can be explained by the fact that the Ben Ali regime actively benefited from this neo-colonial arrangement — namely from corrupted liberalisation and privatisation processes — combined with budget support payments. This view is supported by Harrison and Mulley (2007: 19), who argue that ‘economic liberalisation has allowed some to use their political positions to enter emerging markets or engage in opaque deals with external investors’. In this fashion, direct neo-colonial influence via budget support may encourage the forms of indirect corporate influence predicted by Nkrumah. Contrary to Vengroff, it appears that direct and indirect forms of neo-colonial influence work in tandem.
Similarly, in Uganda, a co-opted elite championed Europe’s free trade agenda — in this case, not only in terms of its own domestic policy, but also within its regional neighbourhood. Notably, Uganda has pressurised its fellow members of the East African Community (EAC) to go ahead with the agreement of an EPA. This is despite Uganda’s status as a least-developed country that could rely upon an alternative trade system — Everything But Arms (EBA) — to maintain low-duty access to European markets irrespective of liberalisation commitments. This is contrary to the position of more prosperous neighbours such as Kenya that would default to the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), a much less generous scheme. Crucially, in terms of pressure within the EAC, President Museveni ‘applauded … the European Union for initiating the EPA’ while his government threatened that it would consider unilateral enactment of the EPA should other EAC members continue to stall (Daily Monitor, 2010a). In this vein, Nelson Gagawala, the Minister for Trade, stated that:
Uganda attaches a lot of importance to regional integration. We believe that favourable trade, not aid, will enable sustainable economic development for Africa. In this regard, we are anxious to see that the impediment to early conclusion of the economic partnership agreement are speedily dealt with. (New Vision, 2010)
The Museveni regime’s manoeuvring for the EAC’s signing of a full EPA is, however, despite concerns from Ugandan trade unions and private sector organisations that prerequisite trade capacity-building initiatives have not been fulfilled. The Director of Trade for the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda, for instance, has expressed grave concerns about a competitiveness gap in the wake of premature trade liberalisation (Observer, 2009). The regime’s stance is also despite calls from eminent Ugandan political economist Yash Tandon for an embargo on ‘destructive’ EPA trade negotiations in order to allow policy space to consider alternatives to premature market-opening. Policy space for such re-evaluation is rightly understood by Yandon to be dependent ‘on the political will of the leadership and the extent to which they can be pressurised by the people and those economic interests that will be hurt by the EPA. It’s a political question’ (Daily Monitor, 2010b). This once more underscores resistance to free market agendas on the part of concerned citizens, trade unions and civil society activists.
It is doubtful, however, that such policy space can soon be achieved owing to the strategic position of EU budget support and its role in entrenching neo-colonial relations. Crucially, budget support mechanisms do not merely impose expectations on the Government of Uganda to implement further liberalisation, they also strategically disburse ‘capacity-building’ finances to the key negotiating ministry, the Ministry of Trade. Specifically, EU budget support has gone towards the EPA Trade and Private Sector Support (EPA TAPSS) programme under the Ministry of Trade from 2009 onwards. The ministry explains that this programme ‘aims at enhancing the capacity … to fulfil its mandate in respect to development of trade, and enabling the country to develop sufficient capacity to exploit the trade opportunities available under the EPA’ (Government of Uganda, 2013, emphasis added). This programme is anchored within the CSP, which states that around €7 million will be made available for capacity-building aimed at ‘trade and EPA related activities’ (European Commission, 2007b: 29). Importantly, the EPA TAPSS is only one such initiative — following predecessors including the Ugandan Programme for Trade Opportunities and Policy (UPTOP, 2003–2007) and the Technical Support for Economic Partnership Agreement Finalisation (TSEPAF, 2008–2009), all funded by EU budget support. This key ministry is therefore expected to defend Uganda’s interests from its major financer — a paradox predicted by Nkrumah (1965) in terms of neo-colonial arrangements.
Furthermore, the Museveni regime is enriched via the premature liberalisation promoted by EU budget support. Indeed, it is widely held in Uganda that the Museveni family has taken advantage of market liberalisation to invest in the emerging floriculture sector, despite prevalent concerns about workers’ rights. In particular, it is held that the president’s wife has invested in an Israeli-owned flower farm in Rubaare (Daily Monitor, 2011). Significantly, the flower industry is sustained by continuing low tariff access to European markets — protected in the long term by Uganda’s accession to an EPA — despite regressive consequences for the wider economic base in terms of traditional agricultural and manufacturing sectors. As Nkrumah (1965: xv) argued, there is little incentive for the Museveni regime, or others in a similar neo-colonial state, to ‘challenge the colonial pattern of commerce and industry’ from which it itself benefits. Furthermore, as Nkrumah predicted, budget support, by providing leverage for the conclusion of EPAs, is ‘merely a revolving credit, paid by the neo-colonial master, passing through the neo-colonial State and returning to the neo-colonial master in the form of increased profits’ (1965: xv). In this context, it is perhaps not surprising that Harvey Rouse of the European Union Delegation to Uganda has boasted of Europe’s ‘deep and constructive’ relationship with the Ugandan Ministry of Trade while praising ‘His Excellency the President [Museveni] and the Honourable Trade Minister … [for their] great leadership within EAC as regards the Economic Partnership Agreement discussions with the EU’ (cited in European Commission, 2011b).
In the country contexts of Ghana, Uganda and Tunisia, it is therefore useful to utilise Nkrumah’s diagnosis of neo-colonialism in the analysis of EU budget support, albeit in terms of neo-colonial arrangements at various stages of development. In African countries with de jure sovereignty, such as Uganda and Tunisia, regimes such as those of Museveni and Ben Ali appear to have participated in a de facto surrender of policy autonomy on matters of economic governance and trade strategy. In these more entrenched forms of neo-colonial arrangements, there is a discernible quid pro quo where regimes enjoy a foreign aid patronage capable of maintaining their power status while becoming simultaneously delinked from questions of wider national economic interest. Such regimes demonstrate compliance with EU donors’ interests in relation to vital economic affairs owing to the fact that their own political survival becomes more dependent on sustaining foreign aid patronage (and corrupted liberalisation processes) than on the construction of a viable domestic economic base. In cases such as Ghana, meanwhile, the government elite may seek to dilute or even to contest donor free market pressures, only to eventually bow to external neo-colonial pressures buttressed by budget support as strategic leverage.
This examination of the role of the European Commission in constructing neo-colonial states through the dissemination of budget support is certainly open to contestation. As discussed, Harrison (2001) is sceptical of what he terms this ‘internal–external distinction’. Nevertheless, it is possible within this article’s arguably more ‘orthodox’ assessment to acknowledge a subtler interplay between external agents and internal actors. Indeed, it is almost a truism now to acknowledge that African elites engage in a manipulation of external preferences. Moreover, the fact that African officials may endorse policies that are detrimental to ‘the poor’ does not negate the need to critique the internal–external dimension — for instance, in terms of budget support interventions that work to strategically delink African elites from the economic interests of their citizens. Nor does it nullify the nature of a creeping neo-colonialism facilitated by budget support — promoting asymmetric trade arrangements such as the EPAs. Indeed, administrators within historical colonial states willingly implemented policies derived from the metropole but this did not negate the realities of what might euphemistically be described as the colonial ‘internal–external’ dimension.
Conclusion
Budget support has been hailed as an effective means of supporting developing countries to implement home-made development policies, thereby facilitating country-ownership and poverty reduction in the Post-Washington Consensus. Donors have sought to shift greater financial emphasis onto budget support and move away from ‘tied’ forms of project aid. Moreover, ‘poverty reduction’ budget support is distinguished in donor discourse from SAP predecessors. Donors emphasise that modern budget aid will go towards health, education and other social sectors. Ostensibly learning the lessons of the Washington Consensus, donors promise that economic policies and trade agendas will not be dictated to from outside and that modern budget support will not be tied to liberalisation reforms.
As discussed above, the European Commission has been one of the most enthusiastic advocates of poverty reduction budget support. Examining the case of EU budget aid to Ghana, Tunisia and Uganda, however, it appears that the strategic utilisation of this aid modality facilitates premature economic liberalisation and trade opening — with regressive consequences for ‘the poor’. Rather than give these countries’ national elites the means to pursue interventionist policies conducive to genuine economic development, budget support gives rise to a divorce between the economic interests of co-opted regimes and their most vulnerable citizens. In the cases of Tunisia and Uganda, EU budget support appears to lubricate corrupted liberalisation processes and to compensate the recipient regime for lost tariff revenues upon the implementation of free market reforms. Nevertheless, by facilitating premature liberalisation, it damages the economic interests of local industrial producers and agricultural smallholders. Moreover, a conflict of interest becomes discernible as key negotiating ministries, such as the Ugandan Ministry of Trade, receive capacity-building assistance while, ostensibly, defending the national interest in negotiations with the European provider. Governments such as that of Ghana, meanwhile, that seek to dilute or to contest donor free market norms are thwarted amidst neo-colonial interventions — with budget support playing a strategic role as leverage.
In this context, it is necessary to engage with theoretical evaluations of African sovereignty in the Post-Washington Consensus. Rather than question the value of the ‘internal–external’ dimension as per Harrison, however, it is necessary to focus on external leverage and neo-colonial interventions in the analysis of EU budget support channels. As Nkrumah warned, a collective (neo-)colonial influence seems to be exerted from within forums such as the Ghanaian MDBS group as EU donors, among others, seek to entrench donor norms of free market liberalisation. Moreover, the realities of such neo-colonial relations underscore the paradox of ‘poverty reduction’ budget support — as regressive liberalisation closes down genuine avenues for poverty alleviation. Indeed, the promotion of premature liberalisation facilitates deindustrialisation in sectors such as poultry and textiles, or else predatory forms of foreign direct investment in sectors such as phosphates. An appropriate response, following Nkrumah, would appear to lie in collective mobilisation with the auspices of the African Union to engender greater self-reliance among African states — and to reject forms of foreign aid that sponsor policies detrimental to the needs of ‘the poor’. This would do much to respond to on-going social protests surrounding the impact of premature free market reforms. This would require, however, substantial political and economic convergence between African states — a task made all the harder given the current realities of direct, and indirect, forms of neo-colonialism.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Elizabeth McCaig and Vijay Simha Pandrapragada. Sincere thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.