Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Professor Kwaku Danso-Boafo has called on African governments to provide a form of leadership that could generate comprehensive development from within rather than relying on foreign aids in developing their countries. On a panel at an international debate at Windsor in England on foreign aid for Africa, the Ghanaian Envoy and other high profile panelists concerted that foreign aid is not the way forward for the continent’s development. They have therefore appealed to the international community to rather collaborate with African leaders to formulate pragmatic measures and policies geared towards the comprehensive development of the continent. They also agreed that foreign aid to the continent must be tailored to the needs of the recipients. A line-up of intellectuals and eminent individuals from around the globe as panelists at the debate organised by the renowned Eton College in Windsor, included the Chairman of the African Union, Dr. Jean Ping, Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Prof. Kwaku Danso-Boafo and The United Nations Special Representative for Migration and Development, Mr. Peter Sutherland. The rest were the Chairman of CARE International, Mr. Richard Greenhalgh, Head of the African Region Division of BBC World Service Mr. Jerry Timmins and Prof. Tony Venables, a Professor of Economics at the Oxford University. Eton College in Windsor is one of the oldest and most prestigious colleges in the world which admits students from around the globe. Many of UK’s and other world leaders trace their roots to this ancient yet first-rate school. The debate, among others, aimed at helping to find solutions to the numerous challenges facing the African continent. It was also to conscientise the large student population who are likely to take responsible world positions in the very near future on such African challenges. Demonstrating vehement disagreement with the influx of foreign aid into Africa Dr. Jean Ping noted that foreign aid to Africa has made the poor poorer, and growth slower. He added that the insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone and more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to high-quality investment. Dr. Jean Ping outlined some interventions to rescue some African countries from poverty and said “we have fantastic poverty reduction goals and we hope to achieve these in a short period of time. We are also looking at the hundred million jobs we will be creating but all of them have to come from investment, in fact investment by Africans and investment by the African continent.” Prof. Danso-Boafo, on his part made a lucid distinction between the various forms of foreign aid to Africa and explained that emergency, humanitarian and charitable aid from organisations are laudable contributions but do not in themselves contribute to the development of Africa and indicated that “the focus here is about Government to Government; this type is the core and the largest form of foreign aid we get in Africa.” Even here, he noted that all too often these types of aid are not designed to address strategic and sustainable development needs of the countries. This notwithstanding, he expressed gratitude to the numerous charitable and humanitarian organisations which in diverse ways support the continent. Prof. Danso-Boafo critiqued other opinions that the continent has not been able to develop with foreign aid primarily due to mismanagement of resources by African leaders and said “over the years, foreign aid to Africa has rather not been tailored to the needs of the people.” Additionally, he explained that in practically every situation, the requisite infrastructure for optimum utilisation of aid packages has been lacking. He emphasised however, that in Ghana, foreign aid has been optimally used to improve health, education, and poverty reduction. He therefore urged the international community to cooperate with African leaders to decide on how the individual countries on the continent should be developed rather than stereotyping all countries and therefore providing “straight jacket” forms of aid packages to all countries. Prof. Danso-Boafo said needs of countries on the continent vary diversely and therefore international donors must first assess the needs critically before making their efforts to assist if they really mean to help with the development of the continent. The debaters reached a consensus that Africa’s development would be engineered by its people and leaders and that what the international community could do to assist was to reform the international economic system to give Africa access to international markets, remove trade barriers to African products and write off Africa’s intractable debts. African leaders should be more transparent, accountable and development oriented. More importantly, the panelists called for sustainable intra-African trade. Story, Nana Sifa Twum, Windsor - England