Humanitarianism in Africa refers to the intentions and actions of people, nations, and organizations to alleviate human suffering in Africa. Humanitarian policies have focused on improving problems in Africa such as poverty, poor-health, corruption, and ethnic/inter-state conflict. Prominent entities which engage in humanitarian action in Africa include but are not limited to: foreign nations like the United States (US), domestic nations like South Africa, international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations (UN), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, and even personal celebrities like Bono. Prominent methods of promoting humanitarianism in Africa have been foreign aid, humanitarian intervention, and UN sanctioned peacekeeping.
Starting in the 1960s, aid to Africa has evolved in focus from infrastructure to poverty to neoliberal stabilization and structural adjustment, to governance to glamour aid. Broadly, foreign aid encompasses emergency aid, charity-based aid, and systematic aid. Emergency and charity-based aid are often shorter term aid aimed at alleviating immediate suffering from events like natural disaster or famine. Conversely, systematic aid from foreign nations and development organizations is long term aid, via concessionary loans or grants, focused on solving foundational problems like poverty or institutional reform. Although emergency aid has helped prevent short term suffering in Africa, systematic aid has harmed Africans by increasing corruption and poverty. Unconditional aid to Africa has been largely proliferated by corrupt officials who engage in private consumption instead of public investment. Aid motivated corruption reduces investment, which in the long-term has suppressed many countries' economic growth. This lower growth has led to increased poverty in Africa, which causes donors to send more aid creating a vicious cycle of aid and poverty.
Another method to promote humanitarianism has been through humanitarian intervention. This method involves foreign nations or multilateral organizations threatening or using force to prevent or stop violent conflicts. Humanitarian intervention does not require the consent of all parties and is more focused on stopping conflict and not long-term nation building. An example of humanitarian intervention in Africa was the UN (UNOSOM) and US (UNITAF) missions to Somalia in 1993. However, the more prominent method of humanitarianism in Africa has been through UN sanctioned peacekeeping operations. These operations insert foreign troops into a post-conflict area in hopes of providing transitional stability. Their presence requires the consent of all parties and their ability to use force is usually restricted to self-defense. Since 1960, the UN has completed 25 peacekeeping missions in Africa, each unique with varying degrees of success. Some examples include ONUC in the Congo, UNAVEM in Angola, and UNAMIR in Rwanda. On balance, peacekeeping operations writ large have succeeded in achieving their mandate in 66% of cases. Their presence has reduced both civilian and military deaths during conflicts and has shortened and prevented conflicts from reemerging.Howard, Lise, "The Future of Peacekeeping in Africa" Webinar from the Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., February 11, 2021. pp. 3-8. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/fp_20210211_africa_peacekeeping_transcript.pdf
Although claiming a desire to alleviate suffering, humanitarianism in Africa has often done the opposite. By often embracing a white-man's burden mentality, humanitarian organizations have engaged in a form of neocolonialism in which they maintain control and influence over formal colonies in the name of benevolent development.
Terms
Humanitarianism Humanitarianism broadly defined is an informal ideology with the primary goal of alleviating human suffering. With roots in late 18th century enlightenment thinking, humanitarianism stresses the universality of human rights and the responsibility of "civilized" people's to sympathize with those suffering and to actively help. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) defines humanitarianism as "the independent, neutral, and impartial provision of relief to victims of armed conflict and natural disasters". In deploying relief, the ICRC follows seven principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. However, this definition and its principles have been contested, as humanitarianism in practice does not always follow these principles and has grown to encompass more long term political projects such as democracy promotion and economic development.
Aid One way humanitarianism achieves its goals is through foreign based aid. This aid consists of three types: emergency aid, charity-based aid, and systematic aid. Emergency aid, or pure humanitarian aid, is short term aid from foreign governments or institutions given to local entities suffering from natural disasters or human conflicts. Charity-based aid comes from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and can be directed towards locals to combat both short and long term issues. Conversely, systemic aid is solely focused on longer term pervasive issues and is made through direct government-to-government transfers, or through international institutions. Government-to-government transfers are termed bilateral aid, while aid from international institutions is termed multilateral aid. Systematic aid comes in two types, concessional loans or grants. Concessional loans are cheaper long-term loans given by countries or institutions at below market rate and are meant to be repaid, while grants are free economic resources not meant to be repaid.
Humanitarian intervention Another way humanitarianism achieves its goals is through armed humanitarian intervention. Strictly defined, humanitarian intervention is when foreign states or international entities use or threaten military force on another state to end or prevent widespread human suffering within that state without the state's consent. What separates humanitarian intervention from other military conflicts is that it is motivated by humanitarian reasons to reduce suffering and that it occurs without the consent of the sovereign dominant authority. The goal of humanitarian intervention is to stop immediate violent conflict, not to explicitly promote political rights or change another country's political/social context. Humanitarian intervention is justified under international law through the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, which obligates UN members to intervene when human rights abuses occur.
United Nations peacekeeping However, much of humanitarian policy in Africa has been pursue via United Nations (UN) sanctioned peacekeeping missions. Peacekeeping is not explicitly humanitarian intervention because it assists in state transformation by stationing neutral foreign troops within a conflict area for an extended amount of time to promote stability. Peacekeeping generally follows three principles: major parties to the conflict must consent to a UN presence, UN troops are impartial to the conflict, and UN troops can only use force in self-defense or defense of the mandate. However, these principles are not always explicitly followed thus, missions can blur the line between humanitarian intervention and pure peacekeeping. For example, traditional "first-generation" peacekeeping requires the consent of both parties to a conflict to occur, a key difference from intervention. However, modern "third-generation" peacekeeping can take on a more militarized form through peace-enforcement in which mission troops enforce post-conflict peace agreements through the threat or use of force with or without both parties consent, aspects more similar to humanitarian intervention.
Ultimately, it is important to remember that wider humanitarian work has occurred without the use force, like NGOs or missionaries, meaning the strict definition of humanitarian intervention does not fully encompass all types of foreign interference for humanitarian reasons.
Brief history
Foreign systematic aid Foreign aid in Africa can trace its origins to post World War II reconstruction and the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. At this conference three important development organizations were founded: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Trade Organization. Designed to promote the stability of the post-war world economy, these organizations shifted their focus to Africa after the success of the US Marshall Plan in the 1950s to reconstruct war-torn western Europe. Aid in the 1960s focused on capital intensive infrastructure and industrial projects in Africa, because it was thought newly independent African countries were unlikely to invest in longer-term projects with a long term pay-off. By 1965, at least US$950 million in aid had been sent to Africa.
However, the 1970s saw an important shift from infrastructure-focused aid to poverty-focused aid. The oil crisis of 1973 led to economic recession and high inflation marked by unsustainable fuel and food prices throughout Africa. To remedy this, the US and the World Bank reoriented their aid programs towards social services, literacy programs, food programs and agriculture in lieu of long term infrastructure. Importantly, the 1970s marked another shift in that most African aid was now coming from the World Bank instead of the US.
The rise of neoliberal economics in the 1980s facilitated yet another change towards stabilization then structural adjustment in the same decade. Increases in floating loan rates after the 1979 oil crisis left African countries with a lot of concessionary loans unable to pay their debt obligations. 11 African countries ensued to default on their debt, leading to IMF restructuring the debt. In an effort to make developing African countries more economically resilient, aid programs now emphasized less government spending and free-market solutions to development, a model that had been working in China.
However, by 1990 economic growth in many African countries was either stagnating or in decline, with the cost to service debt higher than the actual aid going to countries. Blame for poor economic performance was placed on poor African governance, with aid now targeting pro-democratic government reforms such as improving civil service and election transparency. Importantly, during the Cold War western aid entities provided aid to corrupt African dictators, such as Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and Liberia's Samuel Doe, to gain their allegiance to combat Soviet expansion. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, aid was no longer motivated by anti-Soviet sentiment, and could be better targeted or even withheld. In fact, Africa's net Official Development Assistance (ODA) declined from a 1992 high of US$17 billion to US$12 billion by 1999.
Aid from 2000 onwards has continued to be characterized by pro-democratic government reforms as well as a rise in "glamour aid" where rich and popular influencers promote celebrity humanitarianism. Although this aid advocacy has increased awareness and funding for humanitarian causes, it has stifled nuanced analytical debate about the benefits and consequences of foreign aid.
Peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention
Overall peacekeeping efficacy