Foreign Policy quotes Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham on the upcoming election in Ghana and concerns that the process is not being conducted fairly:
But J. Peter Pham, director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., told FP that in terms of the lack of international attention to a more stable country like Ghana, Akufo-Addo has a point.
The United States, for example, provides roughly $6 billion to Africa in foreign aid each year. But that money is divvied up to address a wide range of needs in various sectors, including humanitarian assistance, electoral monitoring, and public health. Countries like Ghana, which have managed to build their own institutions and require far less hand-holding than war zones like Somalia and South Sudan, are rarely prioritized.
“Even though the pie isn’t shrinking, it isn’t getting bigger either,” Pham said. “So when it comes to the funding for democratization in Africa, the absolute pool has shrunk, and in that we tend to prioritize cases that are particularly egregious.”