Giving Compass' Take:

• Celestin Monga, former senior economist at the World Bank, shares the deeply exclusive, divisive impact of long-standing racism in global development.

• How does racism in global development directly reinforce systems of oppression and poverty in Africa? What can we do to uproot racism in global development and de-weaponize ethnicity in the push for social peace?

• Learn about how donors often perpetuate the effects of racism in development aid.

Many of the development experts who set the policy agenda across Africa are recent university graduates with very little professional experience in any field, and none about life and policies in developing countries. Not surprisingly, their policy advice, provided on the basis of a fuzzy understanding of country context, is often of poor quality, irrelevant, and harmful.

The deleterious consequences of prejudice by some members of the “donor community” and their misuse of power cannot be underestimated. Government officials who are subjected to the superiority complex and disdain from the representatives of foreign aid institutions eventually stop sharing honest opinions, as they must do whatever it takes in order to secure external financing. African policymakers often feel helpless when they are told in no uncertain terms that their major strategy and policy papers must be validated by the all-too powerful “donors” as a prerequisite for discussions about foreign aid.

I once attended a workshop in Ouagadougou to discuss Burkina Faso’s health sector strategy. Two-thirds of the participants were from foreign countries and organizations—each of them with strong views and preferences on what the country’s health policy should be. Who would be accountable if the recommended policy eventually proved to be erroneous?

Prejudice and racism are still too common across Africa. Superficial differences in physical appearances or cultural background are too often exploited by cynical political entrepreneurs to build constituencies, create conflicts among poor communities, position themselves for rents and state capture, and generate what I have called in my work negative social capital. The weaponization of ethnicity in particular carries heavy implications for economic transformation and the collective quest for prosperity and social peace.

Read the full article about racism in global development by Celestin Monga at Brookings.