AFRICA'S INTERNATIONAL DEBT
I've been reading some on Africa and trying to get some understanding of Africa's problems. The most obvious problem is bad governance and abuse of power. The borders are a burden left behind by colonialism: since identity is tribal rather than national, and the national borders do not correspond to tribal borders, there is a lot of ethnic violence within states, and wars that cross state boundaries. Geography is the source of some of Africa's problems: a heavy disease burden, underpopulated regions where economies of scale are scarce, and few ports and rivers that can link Africa to the world. After a couple years of studying this at Harvard though, I think the most important deep reason for development outcomes is simply culture; "institutions," Dani Rodrik's favorite pick in the horse race of various factors, are the surface manifestation of culture. These are remote causes, though, and we can't influence them much, so it's not much use talking about them. Among the proximate causes is international debt.

The World Bank is supposed to be there to help. But we make our money from loans, so we keep putting Africa further into debt. And I'm part of it. Are we doing enough good to justify adding to the debt problem? This is a question that always haunts me, and I guess a lot of people at the Bank.

It brings me back to Iraq, too, by the way. I don't want France, Germany and Russia to forgive Iraq's debt. That would send the message that the debt was legitimate, that the Iraqi people are responsible for repaying funds leant to a government that was their hated enemy, that never got any consent from them, that in no way represented them. "Debt relief" would masquerade as charity for the Iraqi people. I want to see an elected Iraqi government tell France, Germany and Russia that the debts are Saddam Hussein's alone and not the Iraqi nation's, with the backing of the US and the UK. If representatives come to ask for payments on that debt, let the Iraqis show them to Saddam's prison cell to have a talk with him. If anything, payment should go the other way: France, Germany and Russia should pay reparations to the Iraqi people for bankrolling the man who brutalized them.

This would be a revolutionary move, and would have worldwide ramifications, because it would maul the credit rating of every tyrant on the globe. We should establish the principle that only a ruler who generally enjoys the consent of the people has the right to borrow money in the name of that people. This would be a great step forward for democracy.