Africa loses significantly more cash to capital flight than it obtains from development aid, external borrowing, or foreign direct investment. In a real sense, Africa is a “net creditor” to the rest of the world.
As a reporter in Uganda, I often saw how access to quality health care and education was limited because of low government revenues and budget allocations. While Uganda and other African countries are certainly recipients of foreign aid from the West, and generate their own tax revenues, it is also clear that illicit financial flows are bleeding out of the African continent, enabled in part by the policies of the West. We now need new partnerships with Africa to “stop the bleeding.”
