Development Finance Institutions in Africa

Funding the future?

Firstly, thank you very much to the Innovations department for hosting an actually thought provoking innovation! To Lisa, thank you for sharing that very insightful documentary - everyone should have come to watch it. (Considering that we funded Suez, that was very brave and necessary thing for you to do!)

I believe that this film put into perspective, the lulled state of consciousness that infects many corporate world people. It seems like everyone is caught up in a stupid and dangerous rat race to have the biggest car, the largest patch of land and the shiniest gold chains (ignorant slaves!), and no one can see that in their incensed pursuit of material imprisonment, people are actually dying and children are starving!

I like to think of myself and my consciousness as distinct, simply because I am still deeply rooted and connected to the struggles of ordinary people. I am not delusional about where I stand in the global scheme, as a black person, as a woman and as a resident of Gauteng. I have no misconceptions about the fact that I will forever be discriminated against and biased on the basis of those three categorizations; if I don’t vehemently fight against those hell-bent on unleashing this discrimination against me and all those like me.

That is why I am not confused about how it can be that now, at a time when the world is at its richest, that there is more poverty now than there ever was before. Why I understand why it is that over half a million tons of food is discarded annually, when 8mn South African children go to bed hungry every night! I am very aware of the fact that the world is a classist institution, driven by the greed and mindlessness of bankers and corporatocracies.

Why do we then have things called DEVELOPMENT institutions, when they knowingly fuel the poverty and under-development of our continent? How many ordinary people on the street, have DFI’s changed the lives of? I am not convinced it’s a lot! Instead, I think that DFI’s have their own special clientele who are conversant in the World Bank and IMF language of economic imperialism.

That certainly explains why people who come to DFI’s with real world solutions to concrete problems, get turned away, because they are illiterate to the language of projections and off-take agreements and inexplicable insurance and lending terms! Small wonder that these DFI’s keep the same groups of clients to finance, because these are the people who have the same narrow capitalist economic /imperialist interests that they promote!

The IDC funded SUEZ, the very same mnc that is causing so much strife and poverty for millions throughout the developing world.

If you look at their pipelines, its horrifying how much DFI’s perpetuate the continued abuse of cheap labour, how they unashamedly encourage callous capitalist competitive behavior at the expense of real, tangible and necessary development on our continent.

It really begs the question – Who does their Social and Environmental Impact Assessment studies? The short answer to that is this; ‘firms of people who have nothing but anthropological anecdotes to go on when surmising about the African situation’. It is really not that hard to see why so many projects get the go ahead, despite the gross human and social consequences that they bring! But then again, who ever heard of a wolf going to check on the interests of the sheep and reporting back objectively!

80% of the clients businesses that are funded by DFI’s, end up under the control and management of white males; and the black firms that get funded, almost always, need to be watered down with non-black partners to get some crumbs off of the funding cake!

How if I may ask, is that transformative or developmental of the SA economy, more specifically in the context of our past? Why are we not aggressively developing any industries that are authentic and local? Why are we not generating and cultivating indigenous ideas and practical (non-profitable) solutions to our problems? DFI’s still fund agricultural concerns that are predominantly geared towards the export market when we could be using the land used for planting, to benefit more generically South African concerns! This is probably the reason why 87% of the arable land in South Africa is owned by less than 7% of the population (no prizes for guessing what race group that 7% is!) How is this any different to the colonialists plantations?

Are DFI’s merely conduits of these globalization policies and life devastating practices? Are DFI’s also just that brand of institutions that are agents of capital and not real change? Is that why their moral compasses would permit them, under the pretentious guises of ‘development’, to bring about the lack of human basic needs to millions of people in third world countries through their assisting of greedy privatizers?

If there is any innovation necessary at DFI's, particularly the IDC, its in direct relation with the institutions mandates! If we want to make a real difference and actually develop Africa and empower her people, we need to stop being silly about our priorities and be brave enough to deal with our real problems! Why are we afraid to build better lives for our people? Why does capital intimidate us so much, when the value of capital is based on OUR gold and diamond reserves!? This is our continent and we should be the ones making the rules about what we want and what we don’t want, what land we can share and what land we wont compromise on, what our education systems should be and what sort of healthcare we will accept and which sort we reject!

In my view, the DFI’s of Africa, should be brazenly pushing an Africanist agenda, aggressively pursuing African interests and actively making sure that any existing and future enterprises on the continent, should be for the furtherance and engendering of a proud, sustainable and African Africa; rather than the current scenario of African DFI’s promoting and violently propagating western capitalist imperialism!

In closing I 'd like to share the provocative words of Bantu Biko"the most potent weapon at the hands of the oppressor, is the mind of the opressed"

Let us take back control of our minds and our senses, as that is the only key to the restoration of human dignity. Our dignity is not contingent on any paycheck, lets live like that! It only takes one conscious decision to change the world!

Let us wake up, Aluta Continua!!!