Managing Underdevelopment: What Two Decades of ODA Debt Reveal
Donors talk about “African capacity” and “ownership,” while retaining the power to decide when, how, and even if the money will arrive. All of this is subject to the political tides and election cycles of the Global North. Credit: Flickr/UN Photo/Marie Frechon.
By External Source
ADDIS ABABA / NAIROBI, Jun 25 2025 (IPS)
Imagine investing US$14 billion, or even slightly less, to achieve universal literacy in 17 African countries where more than half the adult population still cannot read or write . Pair that with another US$36 billion to connect Africa’s landlocked nations through 12,000 kilometres of new railway lines along priority transport corridors.
These are not distant ambitions; they are costed, achievable interventions. And even after financing both, donors would still have billions left — if they had honoured the $71.74 billion in aid they pledged to Africa but never delivered.
The truth is the aid system is not “broken.” It’s working the same way it always has. Instead of transforming the Global South, the architecture of the aid system stabilizes the Global North. It protects commercial and foreign interests, rather than prioritizing efforts to end abject poverty
Over the last two decades, G7 and multilateral donors committed $292 billion of aid to Africa. But $71.74 billion of the promised funds were never disbursed. This is not mere bureaucratic slippage, it is Overseas Development Aid (ODA) debt: development funds owed but withheld. It is a debt that undermines the very premise of partnership.
Even when aid does arrive, it’s too short-term to support structural transformation. G7 projects now last an average of just 3.18 years, far below the standard five-year cycles of African national development plans.
In conflict-affected and fragile states, the durations are even shorter. Across all contexts, the problem is compounded by chronic disbursement delays: by year five, one-third of committed aid remains undelivered.
The African Union has declared 2025 the Year of Reparations, a recognition that today’s development crisis cannot be understood without considering centuries of slavery and colonial history and their continuation under the current global economic systems. But reparations are not just about the past.
They directly address the continuing drain on Africa’s potential while dressing up inequality in the language of “aid” and “development cooperation.”
The truth is the aid system is not “broken.” It’s working the same way it always has. Instead of transforming the Global South, the architecture of the aid system stabilizes the Global North. It protects commercial and foreign interests, rather than prioritizing efforts to end abject poverty.
Aid flows are often tied to commercial conditions, such as requiring recipient governments to purchase goods and services from the donor country. These arrangements boost the donor’s exports and support its domestic industries.
At the same time, aid enables donor countries to maintain political influence in strategic regions, aligning development cooperation with their foreign policy goals. It is neither altruism nor an attempt to correct historic injustice. Rather, it is an economic strategy cloaked in moral obligation.
Donors talk about “African capacity” and “ownership,” while retaining the power to decide when, how, and even if the money will arrive. All of this is subject to the political tides and election cycles of the Global North.
We are told to be accountable, yet the aid system itself remains deeply unaccountable. France has proposed slashing its development aid budget by 40%, despite having passed a law this year to increase its aid to meet the UN’s target of at least 0.7% of gross national income dedicated to ODA.
Belgium has announced a 25% cut. Meanwhile, the United States’ sweeping aid reductions have hit Africa particularly hard, undermining programs in health, nutrition, and food security. More Global North countries are expected to follow suit including Germany, the world’s second-largest ODA provider.
These are not isolated policy choices. These are symptoms of a global architecture that was never designed to deliver justice.
This is why the African Union’s Year of Reparations must become a rallying cry. Reparations are not just about colonial theft; they confront the ongoing conditions that perpetuate continued economic exploitation. The same extractive patterns that fuelled slavery and colonial empires now manifest in trade agreements, debt regimes, tax havens, and the aid system.
In this system, “global partnership” often feels more like containment. What is offered as “solidarity” is underpinned by hierarchy. This kind of “support” is not aid – it is managed underdevelopment.
Justice can be pursued through existing global and African-led mechanisms — from UN-led platforms such as the Financing for Development (FfD) process, to emerging African-led financing reforms. This is a call for meaningful political will to reorient the system.
Here’s what must change:
- Reframe aid as a tool of justice, not charity.
Development cooperation must be grounded in historical obligation and global solidarity, not donor discretion. Africa needs long-term, predictable financing aligned with national priorities, not three-year projects designed in Brussels or Washington.
- Make aid commitments enforceable.
The 0.7% target cannot remain symbolic. Donor pledges must be backed by binding frameworks, regular reporting, and consequences for non-compliance.
- Dismantle the colonial architecture of aid.
Aid delivery systems must shift control to African institutions. The current model, designed around donor risk management and political optics, must give way to one centred on recipient sovereignty.
- Decisively deal with the commitment–disbursement gap.
Delays in disbursing committed aid are breaches of trust that must carry consequences. There is no justification for donors to operate without accountability when African governments often face penalties or interest for delayed payments.
The $71.74 billion that Africa was promised but never received over the past 20 years could have done so much. It still can – if it is repaid.
Africa is not asking for generosity. It is asserting its right to fairness, redress, and a future shaped on its own terms. Let us not pretend that another accountability dashboard or aid conference will fix this. The system must be reconstructed inclusively and grounded in justice—for Africa.
This article is co-authored by Martha Bekele (Co-founder, DevTransform), based in Addis Ababa, and Vitalice Meja (Executive Director, Reality of Aid – Africa), based in Nairobi.