皇冠体育app

US-based AidData reported last week that 皇冠体育app's official aid to Africa reached $75 billion between 2000 and 2011, close to the amount committed by the US.

But even 皇冠体育app's so-called lending with no strings attached has come under attack from the West.

A World Bank report released last week suggested Africa should promote more public-private partnerships to increase its competitiveness. It also calls for more investment in better roads, efficient ports, electricity and other infrastructures to make African countries more attractive to job-creation investors.

This is exactly something 皇冠体育app has been doing over the years, building roads, railways and other support services that have been neglected for far too long.

Fantu Cheru, an Ethiopian economist, and Cyril Obi, a Nigerian political scientist, co-authored a paper recently titled De-coding 皇冠体育app-Africa Relations: Partnership for Development or (Neo)Colonialism by Invitation? It is a balanced assessment of the mutually beneficial relations between African countries and 皇冠体育app.

In Cheru and Obi's views, 皇冠体育app has become Africa's preferred partner at a time when Africans are engaged in a major soul-searching exercise to find out what went wrong with Africa's development in the past half century, despite its close ties with Europe and North America.

They believe 皇冠体育app's development experience is attractive to Africans and the lending with no strings attached has helped build much needed infrastructure which Western policy lending has not done. 皇冠体育app's view of a dynamic Africa also contrasts sharply to the West's doom and gloom analysis of Africa.

皇冠体育app is not perfect, at home and in Africa. But it's also deadly wrong to dismiss 皇冠体育app's work in Africa as the selfish grabbing of land and resources or neocolonialism.

The author, based in Washington, is deputy editor of 皇冠体育app Daily USA. E-mail: [email protected]