1960s–2010s: (The Debt Crisis and the Illusion of Growth — Africa’s Total Debt Spiraling from $9 Billion in 1970 to $321 Billion by 1997, Western Aid Averagi…

1960s–2010s: (The Debt Crisis and the Illusion of Growth — Africa’s Total Debt Spiraling from $9 Billion in 1970 to $321 Billion by 1997, Western Aid Averaging $12 Billion a Year Through the 1990s, the Donor Community Using Aid to Shape Domestic Policy, the 2005 G8 Debt Relief Conditional on Further Structural Adjustment, NGOs Proliferating as the Frontline of the Donor Community, and the Debt Cancellation Campaign as the Latest in a Series of Public Lobbies Beginning with the Abolition of the Slave Trade): The debt crisis that had its roots in the period after independence proved economically crippling. It was cumulative — beginning with risky loans to fund ill-starred projects in the 1960s and 1970s, and leading to governments taking new loans solely to service old ones. Terms of trade grew less favorable and export prices fell steadily, leaving states without the revenue to finance themselves through mounting crisis. Africa’s total debt spiraled from $9 billion in 1970 to $321 billion by 1997, with high interest rates compounding unpaid arrears and leading to ever larger proportions of GDP diverted from domestic spending. Western aid averaging $12 billion annually through the 1990s was clearly a short-term solution, but it gave the donor community unprecedented influence over the economic and political strategies of otherwise sovereign states. Money came with conditions — SAPs involved economic liberalization, privatization, and forced reductions in state expenditure on health and education. The growing campaign to cancel Africa’s debt became the latest in a series of public lobbies — beginning with the movement to abolish the slave trade in the late eighteenth century — aimed at the salvation of a supposedly benighted continent. The public discussion, like that of nineteenth-century missionaries, treated Africa as a concept and a condition to be addressed, a screen onto which Western civilization could project its fundamental benevolence. NGOs proliferated as the frontline of the donor community, from Oxfam and Save the Children to Médecins Sans Frontières and UNICEF — in the immediate term many represented the difference between life and death for countless communities, though debates about their long-term efficacy and the cultural implications of their work continued.