What Does Development Aid Really Mean?

What does development aid really mean?
Does it mean managing money to mobilize against HIV
Or driving through southern Sudan in an SUV?
Does it mean the improvement of life,
Since many join the development enterprise to improve their lifestyle?
Does it mean giving 1/10 of 1% of your GNP
And having 1/3 of that funnel its way to those in need,
Since most of the aid goes to pay aid agency staff salary?
What does it mean?
Development aid is well-intentioned
But in this new millennium we have to learn our lesson
Because I'd rather have no aid than slow aid or low aid
If it means that development agencies will give funds
To governments for pipelines and pesticides
But indirectly support a genocide
Or have we forgotten the extreme case of Rwanda,
Where 80% of development aid went to the pre-genocide government
Even though all of the signs of the genocide were in place
But agencies for aid
Paid it no mind as long as that well-water became potable
...or that fertilizer ferry became floatable
... or that minimal rise in literacy became notable
Just noticeable enough to give uplifting quotable statistics on report backs to donors
Please!
Misguided, top-down development enforces the politics of exclusion
Because in collusion with repressive governments,
The poorest of the poor never receive assistance in fields like subsistence farming
And it's quite alarming
Because aid agencies never realize their agency in societal conflicts
Because they claim to take an "apolitical" approach
But they fail to see how misdirected, top-down aid can encroach
On a politically fragmented society
And exacerbate it by further disempowering the disempowered
Primarily by working with government-appointed elites
So we have to rethink development
Because many of us don't understand what to "develop" meant in the first place
I'm calling for a structural adjustment program of Structural Adjustment Programs
And other policies that claim or claimed to assist developing homelands
Because development doesn't mean that we can have Afrikan Growth & Opportunity
When the resources we use don't come from our own community
It doesn't mean fancy dinners in classy hotels
With money given to decrease mortality rates for newborn children
And if aid can’t be given to a government
Without a care for ensuring the rights of every child, woman and man
Then I'll be damned before I say that everything is “ok” with development aid

It's time to ensure that our dollars are being spent on education and public health
As opposed to Safari vacations and private wealth
For foreign experts and host government hierarchies
And if we can have vouchers at home
Why not have developing country vouchers
So good governments can choose the best development projects for their land
Instead of generic plans from those claiming to know what's best for the destitute?
Development aid can't be looked at as a Wall Street business transaction
Where investors are only worried about the comeback
We need to come back and revise our strategy
Because we'll all be glad to see the day
When development aid is not only concerned
With promising statistics on cocoa revenues, crop distribution,
And more village midwives
Because few lives will be improved or saved
Unless the poorest of the poor truly receive the majority of the aid
So until the day when underdeveloped development dreams
Are redeveloped for developing countries
Development aid will never be what is seems
And if we continue to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to this preventable predicament
Then the poorest of the world's poor will continue to ask:
"What does development aid really mean?”

*Partially inspired by Dr. Peter Uvin’s Aiding Violence

• Urban Music Award winner Omékongo Dibinga, M.A., is a motivational speaker, rapper, and poet. He is the Founder & CEO of Free Your Mind Publishing. A first generation Congolese-American, Omékongo writes and performs in English, French, Swahili, and occasionally has used Wolof. He has released 4 CDs, 2 books, and 1 DVD. He is the host of “Flava,” an international satellite hip-hop radio show in Asia, Europe, and Africa. He has performed/lectured in the United States, South Africa, England, Congo-Kinshasa, Tanzania, France, Cuba, and Canada. His work has been televised in over 130 countries. For more information, please visit
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