The article relates to the need for production by African governments against dependency on aid as a factor that can curtail IFFs.African governments have spent decades asking their richer counterparts in the West for aid, instead they should ask for access to markets for trade. These governments would help the continent better if they rethought what they ask for and, perhaps, looked closer to home for some of the answers to Africa’s problems. Although billions of dollars still flow into Africa every year as aid, it has been relegated in importance behind foreign direct investment and remittances from Africans in the diaspora. Transfers of money within the continent are not much cheaper either. The bigger problem with finance, however, is not with how much comes into Africa but how much leaves. Cumulative illicit outflows from Africa between 1980 and 2009 ranged between M12 trillion and M15 trillion. A lot of the illicit outflows are done in broad daylight , by transfer pricing, tax evasion and avoidance, as well as under-pricing deals by multinationals. Yet, instead of clawing back what legally and morally belongs to Africa, governments and policy makers on the continent have spent more time asking for aid and loans.
