Ohio University Press has a series of "Short Histories of Africa". I recently decided to pick up most of the collection for potential use as reading materials for classes. This post covers "Julius Nyerere" (2017), by Paul Bjerk. A few notes:

"Upon returning he was told he no longer had a job at St. Francis High School, as the colonial government had informed the Catholic leadership that they would not countenance a salaried teacher openly involved in oppositional politics." (p. 40)

"Kambona later recalled, "I found him sitting on the floor reading a book about Gandhi." (Throughout his career Nyerere continued to take yearly vacations in his home village during the rainy season, removing himself from Dar es Salaam politics while he took stock of himself and his country.)" (p. 41)

"During this year of upcountry travel, Nyerere ready book by Petro Itosi Marealle an old man from a chiefly family near Mount Kilimanjaro. The book presented a theory of rural African society that the author called ujamaa, meaning "familyhood." Nyerere first used this term in a speech on land policy a few months after his resignation. He began to develop Ujamaa into a comprehensive political ideology that combined African nationalism with his own unorthodox theory of harmonious socialism that rejected Marx's theory of class conflict. Nyerere envisioned African socialism as a social ethic derived from the shared responsibilities of family life in rural Africa." (p. 58-59)

"Nyerere had always been uncomfortable with the racial rhetoric surrounding Africanization policy and now for "localisation" of the civil service, meaning that the effort would be to hire and promote citizens of Tanganyika, regardless of their race, to replace the highly paid expatriates." (p. 64)

"When West Germany cut off military aid in protest of Tanzania's plan to host an East German consulate in Dar es Salaam, and enraged Nyerere told the West German ambassador to "take the rest of your aid as well." In 1965, Nyerere broke relations with Britain to protest its passive policy towards Southern Rhodesia's declaration of independence, which had made it easier for the white minority there to maintain its domination." (p. 80)

"A visiting IMF negotiator proposed to explain the package to the president personally. Mtei brought him to see Nyerere, who, after listening for a short while, abruptly got up and walked away. Nyerere said the IMF visitors had treated him with disdain and vowed that he would never allow his country to be run from Washington. They should go home, he told him Mtei. "I will devalue the shilling over my dead body." Nyerere felt that devaluation effectively stole money from his citizens' pockets to the benefit of foreign investors." (p. 119-120)

"When western representatives wanted to know more about the spiraling Congolese conflict, Nyerere berated them for their ignorance about their own countries' contribution to the conflict, especially since the United States had funded Mobutu's dictatorship. "You imposed and supported Mobutu for 32 years!" he told them. "We could not do anything. You know how bad Mobutu destroyed the country. This time leave us Africans to try and help Congo. The Congolese people have suffered a lot. Their blood is our blood. Please leave us alone this time."" (p. 140) 

Edwards wrote about Tanzania in 2014, providing an external perspective, largely from purview of the World Bank. For an alternative perspective, readers can pick up Andrew Coulson's "Tanzania: A Political Economy" (1982), which he wrote from within, as a civil servant and academic in Tanzania. Coulson provides an introduction to Tanzania from the colonial period until 1980, attempting not to be "ether romantic or dismissive" about the nation (p. 25). The book is very readable, and accessible for undergraduate readers – particularly those with an interest in history (given the book was published 30+ years ago). It is also important for the different perspectives. A dominant opinion about Tanzania and its early socialist inclinations has developed, Coulson provides viewpoints and insight that are well worth revisiting.

What did the socialist inclinations in Tanzania include? Coulson neatly summarizes that for "some years after 1967, Tanzania was the country in Africa most noticeable committed to socialist principles. Nyerere became a world figure, a spokesman for the 'poorest of the poor', demanding a New International Economic Order that would give them a greater share of the world's wealth, and trying to ensure that the non-aligned countries acted as a trade union, merging some of their individual interests to campaign on a common programme" (p. 22). Coulson outlines the origins of Nyerere's approach to non-alignment and independence in international relations (e.g. p. 180-181), which set the nation on a unique path during the post-colonial period. At the same time, Coulson criticizes Nyerere, such as the authoritarian rule, and idealized and romantic assumptions that drove the African Socialism approach (e.g. p. 184, 285, 347, 377).

In contrast to many writers, Coulson says the villagization program "cannot be said to have failed – although it changed the face of Tanzania – for the achievements in the field of social services also have to be taken into account" (p. 308). Speaking about international relations, and specifically the choices and actions of the international donor community, he writes "it would be a rash analyst who thought that a single theory would explain the behaviour of all the governments involved" (p. 367) – although Edwards cites Coulson, he seems to have missed this point.

There are many interesting side notes for readers studying history and development, such as the increase of tsetse due to colonial activity (p. 56), the German use of Swahili and advancement of a national language that was not a colonial one (p. 70), and education as "the most powerful weapon in the battle for the minds of the colonized" (p. 123). On the underlying paradigms, Coulson writes "all the institutional policies…were justified by an appeal to modernization theory. The view that peasants are primitive, backward, stupid – and generally inferior human beings – dominates the rural chapters of both the 1961 World Bank report and the Tanganyikan First Five-Year Plan" (p. 199).

An area of particular interest to Coulson is agriculture. Given the book was published in 1980, he offered some sharp criticism of agricultural extension, which (unfortunately) continue to be applicable. For example: "Farmers who refused to accept 'modern methods' were described as stubborn, lazy, ignorant, conservative, uncooperative, etc. There was little or no recognition that logic often lay in the refusal to do what the extension staff advised" (p. 85). Furthermore, "many studies found that much of the advice given by extension workers was not appropriate to small farmers. The clearest case of this was inter-cropping. Extension workers were trying (with little success) to persuade farmers to plant their crops in pure strands" (p. 192). He also points to studies showing that extension workers provided services to richer farmers, not equally, not the most in need of support (p. 191).

Every few months the question is asked: Does aid work? Sebastian Edwards, professor and former World Banker, wrote "Toxic Aid: Economic Collapse and Recovery in Tanzania" (2014) to help wade through the an answer. In short, he concludes "aid affects economic performance in a highly complex way, and through multiple and changing channels. It also underlies the fact that this is a two way relationship: aid agencies influence policies, and the reality in the recipient country affects the actions of aid agencies. This relationship is too intricate and time-dependent that it is not amendable to being captured by simple cross-country regressions; in fact, even sophisticated specifications with multiple breakpoints and nonlinearities are unlikely to explain the inner workings of the aid-performance connection." (p. 261). Success or failure largely depends on the timeframe looked at – Edwards concludes that in the long-term "Tanzania doesn't look quite like a major successful story. It rather looks like a case of a remarkable recovery, but this is not the same as outright success" (p. 254).

Edwards argues that Tanzania is a useful case study because "foreign assistance has been at the center of the country's economic failures and successes" (p. 2). Some suggest that Tanzania is a classic example of "deadly" or "toxic" aid, others argue that it is an example of success. Edwards wades through the different conclusions using a broad, long-term perspective. While the international community, the actions of donors and the impact of aid played an important role, at times Edwards over projects the aid narrative such that national priorities, policies, politics and decision making rationale are secondary, and in some ways subservient to, the donor community. For example, the author states that the "first order of business for the Mkapa administration was, as noted, to put in place a budget process that would be accepted by the donor community" (p. 218). Not one that serves its people, via that acceptance. The Tanzania story shows that this is certainly not the only driving force for decision making – most notably that President Nyerere expelled the International Monetary Fund from the country (which he knew would have negative consequences).

The failures Edwards highlights from the 1970s includes the attempted collectivization of agriculture, a bloated and inefficient parastatal sector, corruption, grandiose industrial projects, and a general collapse of the economy – on the latter he suggests "it is possible to argue that this disintegration happened because aid agencies were heavily involved in supporting (and even helping design) Nyerere's ujamaa policies" (p. 3). Again, in the concluding chapter, he writes: "After analyzing in great depth Tanzania's history during its first two decades as an independent nation, it is clear to me that the official aid community had a major responsibility in one of the most colossal collapses of a poor country in the history of the modern world. When one adds and subtracts everything – the misguided policies, the blunders, the growing corruption, and the socially worthwhile projects – the balance is hugely negative. The inescapable conclusion of that exercise is that during 1961-81 aid was worse than ineffective; it was toxic" (p. 257). Interestingly, however, is that this "responsibility" does not translate into an issue of justice when speaking about aid to Tanzania today, but rather greater "ownership" is merely a better pathway to effectiveness (see long quote below).

For the 1961-81 period, Edwards grades the aid agencies performance as a failure, and not "a run-of-the-mill "F"; it would be a failing grade with a strong worded reprimand. I would use words such as "irresponsible," "arrogant," "misguided," gullible," "ineffective" (p. 259). For 1981-94, he give a passing grade of B- and after 1996 a B+ (p. 260). The ways forward, Edwards concludes with, include: (1) ending support for grandiose, costly projects with limited impact, (2) increasing engagement with civil society, (3) strengthening institutions, (4) reducing corruption, (5) relying more on RCTs to guide development choices, and (6) beginning thinking about "the end game" for reducing aid.

The book offers interesting perspectives, such as this (long quote) on "ownership":

• "From a conceptual point of view, an intriguing question is why would donors give up their control over how funds are allocated? After all, according to theoretical models of international aid, donors provide assistance – and allocate is across alternative uses – in a way that maximizes their ow utility function. This requires that, at the aggregate level, aid is provided to the point where its marginal benefit (including non-pecuniary effects, altruistic goals, and possible externalities) equals its marginal cost. At the same time, the marginal benefit to marginal cost ratio should be equalized across alternative uses of the aid funds. Donors' utility functions are highly complex, and include the wellbeing of the population in the recipient country as well as the level of activities in specific areas supported by taxpayers and bureaucrats in the donor nations (i.e. literacy, women's health, protecting the environment, improving governance, and so on). These utility functions also include distributional weights, and political considerations both in the donor and recipient nations. A direct way to incorporate into the analysis the ownership issue is by assuming that the "productivity" of aid depends on the level of "effort" exerted by the local government and community. Effort, in turn, will depend on a number of factors, including how well the donors' intentions and goals are understood, the beliefs of the recipient community, and the degree of participation of the local population in the design and formulation of aid programs. Greater ownership may reduce the volume of resources devoted to some of the donors' favorite projects, but it is likely to increase effort, and, thus, the effectiveness of those resources. By eliciting an increase in effort, a higher degree of "ownership" may generate Pareto superior outcomes, where utility increase for both donors and recipients." (p. 186-187)