Leeds Manifesto. How to Spend $100 billion for Africa

The EU has promised to double aid to Africa in the next five years to complement a new effort by the eight richest countries to promote the welfare, prosperity and security of ordinary Africans. In the last year, EU Development Ministers have been offered thousands of pages of advice on how to spend this money. There is a fear that they may double the size of existing aid bureaucracies in Brussels and at home to deliver the increases. African countries will certainly face problems absorbing a doubling of aid if it is delivered through traditional aid mechanisms. This short manifesto is a plea to EU Development Ministers to take a strategic approach to spending the new money in ways that actually enable more individual Africans to take the lead in transforming their own economic and social systems.