Discrimination and Prejudice in Development - A Response to Dr. Celestin Monga

A black man, George Floyd, was killed in Police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the latest at that time in a long list of black men killed in Police custody in the USA. Anti-racism protests, largely organized by the Black Lives Matter movement followed, not just in the United States, late Mr. Floyd’s home country but also across the world. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Gutierrez (the SG), recognizing that racism does exist within the ranks of the United Nations, announced that he was initiating a one year conversation on anti-black racism in the Organization. He hopes that the outcome of this year long conversation will a set of recommendations to tackle racism in the UN.

This announcement appears to have instigated the emergence of a mini growth industry in which international development experts write about their experience(s) with racism not just in the UN but in international development in general. Many probably see it as the green light that they needed to talk or complain openly about racism and prejudice in international development without any fear of retaliation or victimization… At least for now.

Dr Celestin Monga’s “Discrimination and Prejudice in Development,” published as a Brookings Institution blog, sent to me by a friend and which I have just read, is the latest contribution to this emerging mini industry. I enjoyed reading about Dr. Monga’s experience as an international development expert and his encounters with racism and prejudice as he carried out his functions. His assessment of the fitness of some the “experts” assigned by “donors” to advise African governments on complex development challenges and the disastrous outcomes of their policy advice will find resonance with many stakeholders in Africa’s development. I applaud Dr Monga for telling his story. I hope that many more international development experts like him, Africans and non-Africans, Blacks and whites, will emulate him It is from these stories that remedies to racism within the ranks of development institutions and in international development will emerge.

But much as I applaud Dr. Monga’s essay, there is a lot in it that I disagree with. I found nothing especially new in it about the superiority complex of non-African experts towards African government officials that is not already known. Indeed, some African staff members of international development institutions at times exhibit superiority complex towards African government officials and officials of African regional and continental institutions much more than their non-African colleagues. Honestly, their arrogance could, quite often, be nauseating. What I found new is the author's own attitude to racism and self-doubt, and other attributes that he sadly projects on all of Africa.

The racism at the World Bank that many Blacks and Africans who work or worked there have complained about escapes mention in Dr Monga’s essay. Perhaps he never was a victim of it or never heard of it during his time there. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the very institutions responsible for sending “many of the development experts-recent university graduates with very little professional experience in any field, and none about life and policies in developing countries-who set the policy agenda across” that Dr. Monga complains about escape blame for the poor outcomes of bad policies forced on poor African countries by their experts, some of whom are Africans.

Dr. Monga was careful not to mention the name of the EU accession country whose Finance Minister expressed deep disappointment that the World Bank had “appointed someone from Africa, a Cameroonian, to be their senior economist and to advise on complex macroeconomic issues” but had no hesitation mentioning an African country, Burkina Faso, by name. Intriguingly, Dr Monga ascribed the Minister’s reaction to his appointment to her lack of knowledge about him, to prejudice, not to anti-black African racism. It is unlikely that the Minister would have reacted in the manner that she did were Dr. Monga though black, American or British or French. It appears that his being an African was what concerned the Minister.

Dr. Monga appeals to the books and papers that he had written and to his qualifications. Did the European Minister really have to read Dr. Monga’s books and papers and review his credentials? After all, the Minister must know the minimum requirements for recruitment into the World Bank and the qualifications of a World Bank senior economist. To him, the Minister was prejudiced (“having preconceived opinion about him that is not based on reason or actual experience”). “Oh, if only the Minister had read my books and papers, and reviewed my credentials, her prejudice would be cured”. Never mind that the minister never warmed up to him, and that the country reduced her engagement with the World Bank to the barest minimum during his three-year tenure in that position. Dr. Monga could not bring himself to describe the Minister’s action and subsequent actions for what they were, blatant racism, “the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.”

Interestingly, while Dr. Monga has difficulty ascribing racism to the European Minister’s actions, he has no difficulty doing so when it came to Africans. In his view, “some development experts were ignorant”, had “superiority complex or even racist attitudes” while African elite were afflicted with “entrenched self-doubt, self-hatred and racist attitudes.” He cites the example of his experience in one African country where he had gone on mission as a “senior World Bank official”. According to him, the African country’s officials (protocol officers) who had come to the airport to receive him and his assistant deferred to his assistant, a light-skinned woman and fellow African, than to him even after he had introduced himself to them as Dr Celestin Monga. This obviously annoyed him no end. And he complained and got the following response from one of the two protocol officers “We thought that the white lady was Dr. Monga, and you, her assistant. Sorry”. He got an apology.

That these functionaries mistook Dr Monga for his assistant is evidence to Dr Monga of our self-doubt, self-hatred and internalized racism. But is it possible that these functionaries did not defer to Dr. Monga’s assistant because she was “white” but that they just made an honest mistake? The name “Celestine” is a unisex name but more commonly given to women in some countries. That could have been the case in this country. The possibility that “Celestine” could be a name given to girls in the African country that he was visiting did not occur to Dr. Monga. He rushed to characterize what could have been an honest mistake by these officers as evidence of Africans’ “self-doubt and internalized racism.” Assuming that he is correct, is it not puzzling that Dr. Monga would use the actions of two perhaps not very exposed and perhaps not very educated functionaries of the government of one African country as a summary statistics for all of Africa?

There is, in my view, a possible reasonable explanation for why some African government officials often defer to visiting white “donor” officials that has absolutely nothing to do with the “entrenched self-hatred, self-doubt and entrenched racism of African elites”: it is racism, racism within the ranks of the donor institutions/organizations. African government officials are rational actors. They know that many Africans working in international organizations, until recently, have very little influence in the decisions that their employers make due to the racism that they face. Many Africans in these institutions/organizations were (some say, are) tokens, seen but seldom heard, their views, thoughts and opinions scarcely considered or considered only after they have been validated or concurred with by a white (or increasingly, Indian) colleague.

African government officials-pursuing the interest of their countries-know who to speak to, who to please in order to get the results they want-approval of their loan application or grant request. Some believe (perhaps based on experience) that they would achieve early success if a white official supported their loan/grant application than if it were supported by a black person (who was super conscious of the racism within the ranks of his organization, and who would not want to stick out his head because preserving his job was the paramount consideration). Given this, it easy to see why a rational African government official will defer more to a visiting say white World Bank official than to a visiting black African World Bank official. Rationality is not self-doubt; it is not self-hatred. Really, why waste scarce resources on someone whom you know is unlikely to further the outcome you desire in an expeditious manner? Racism is an important factor shaping and determining Africa’s relations with western donor organizations and institutions.

Perhaps, Dr Monga’s assertions that “prejudice in the development business does not only come from outside (Africa)”, that “there is also entrenched self-doubt, self-hatred, and various forms of socio-political ills from within the continent, that “racist attitudes are sometimes internalized by African elites themselves, illustrating a profound deficit of self-esteem and a lingering social disease”; that “Africans are intellectually lazy” are true. (A white person describing Africans in the way that Dr. Monga has will be accused of racism!) A legitimate question that one can ask is: what did Dr. Monga do, as an African, to help counter these challenges in the many senior positions that he has held in international development organizations? A diagnosis without a cure is of little or no consequence.

It is very telling that even at this stage in his life and career, a stage when professional viability shouldn’t be much of a concern, that Dr. Monga chose to be strategically imprecise (for want of a better expression) on anti-Black, Anti-black African racism in international organizations. The victim of racism is the one, in his view, afflicted with internalized racist attitudes. Racism in the UN, in international development institutions and in international development has a direct adverse impact on the lives of Africans. Let us be frank and honest in discussing it.