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Permalink Reply by Vincent L. Guarisco on March 8, 2012 at 3:47am

Justin --

The people of Guinea better be careful and read the fine print. I know they need crucial economic development assistance, but this smells like IMF and Globalization. Just remember, everything that the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the African Development Bank does for Africa, is very risky in the long term. If they do decide to finance their future, any utility projects will probably come with an expensive "meter," and the loans will be very hard to repay. Plus, if they default ... well, you know what happens next. Here's a little more info w/url: 

http://www.ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol._2_No._4;_March_2011/22.pdf

Abstract

Foreign aid/development assistance involves the transfer of resources in whatever form from the developed

countries or multilateral financial institutions like World Bank, IMF, Islamic Development Bank (IDB) etc. to less

developed or developing countries for the purpose of promoting and stimulating their economies for growth and

development. Unfortunately, most of these countries, especially the African countries are characterized by

multiple problems such as bad leadership and governance, mismanagement and corruption, debt crisis,

insufficient and poor infrastructure, chronic poverty etc.; and all these problems have continued to make

nonsense of foreign aid’s judicious and optimal utilization and impact on their economies. However, considering

the position and role of IDB over the years in the global economic development; this paper examined the

developmental activities of IDB in Africa and some of the challenges for sustainable development. In line with the

Financial Two Gap Model (Double Deficit Model) and also the Islamic economic principle of Wide Circulation of

Wealth, this paper therefore argues that there are a lot of challenges confronting the continent, which the Bank

could assist in resolving through its development assistance, especially in the Muslim populated countries i.e.

African Muslim Countries (AMCs). Challenges like Human capital development (HCD), poverty alleviation,

corruption and mismanagement, infrastructural development, and good governance among others have enormous

implications for sustainable development in the continent. And hence, this paper recommends that IDB should

give more attention and priority to growth promoting types of foreign aid like program aid, sectoral aid, technical

assistance etc. rather than financial aid, which is often squander. Doing this would facilitate the development

process and by extension the desire for sustainability in the continent