American caution not so evil

America has been getting a lot of flack from the international community for its reluctance to jump on board with Mr. Blair's plan for Africa. Mr. Bush is at the centre of these attacks, having already provoked international mistrust and suspicion thanks to his aggressive foreign policy. Mr. Blair is proposing a three-pronged attack on Africa's development problems:

-Write off international debt to Africa
-Hugely increase aid (perhaps double it)
-Promote fairer trade with African nations

There is no doubt that this plan could significantly alter Africa's future economic path, and improve living conditions for large segments of the poorest population on Earth. So is America just being evil in its reluctance to sign on?

The story is a little more complicated than that. Firstly, one has to recognize that the burden of instituting such a plan would fall largely on American shoulders. Humbug, you say, America has by far the largest economic capacity to support such a package! This, too, is true, but as any Spiderman-watching American could tell you, with great power comes great responsibility.

And America has recently had some stinging lessons in monetary responsibility and corporate governance. In recent years, only one other developed nation has had to suffer an Enronesque crisis like that which shook American economic might, and that was Canada who, despite good intentions, is probably just too small to have an enormous quantitative impact on foreign development aid.

So America, painfully aware of the potential damage that can arise from economic irresponsibility, is understandingly reluctant to give buckets of aid to Africa without first having assurances that the aid is going to be used to alleviate poverty. Assurances for America constitute, fundamentally, democracies. And this makes sense to a large degree. If there were actually political consequences for corruption among the African political elite, governments would probably be forced to use foreign aid much more effectively. But, as this week has shown, not even Africa's 'most democratic nation' can properly punish government MPs for (very) public corruption scandals.

America's worries are probably justified. The Millennium Challenge Account, which requires strict monitoring of aid disbursements before they are awarded, is a good solution to the problem of monitoring aid usage, and is entirely an American innovation. So from a reasoned perspective, America has a solid basis for refusing to be a part of Mr. Blair's project.

What America cannot forget, however, is that it has no excuse for ignoring global poverty altogether, and that as the most powerful nation on Earth, it is morally obliged to do something to help. A lack of aid accountability is a sorry excuse for refusing to save human life.