In addition, many nongovernmental organizations, such as the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy and Britain's Westminster Foundation, are providing assistance to democratic organizations and institutions of various kinds. It should not be an open-ended subsidy. Most African economies are devastated and need help. But aid will be more or less wasted, as it has been for the past quarter century, unless it is conditioned on certain principles and focused on transforming institutions and incentives economically and politically. The chokehold of the state over all dimensions of the economy must be broken through trade liberalization, privatization, reductions in state bureaucracy, government decentralization, and other reforms.
Human capital needs to be dramatically improved if Africa is to compete in the world economy.
This requires the kind of emphasis on basic education and health services that has been so instrumental to the East Asian miracle. Aid should be conditioned on economic liberalization, political freedom and accountability, and redirection of budgetary priorities away from military and other unproductive spending and toward human and physical capital. Those countries that are serious about development and good governance deserve more aid, including debt relief, as a transitional boost to sustainable development. Those governments that aren't serious should be denied support. There is a new spirit and awareness in Africa today, and some African economies are beginning to record rapid economic growth as a result of it.