The World: Israel's Stake in Black Africa

WHEN a cholera epidemic broke out recently in Kenya, the Ministry of Health decided that the entire country would have to be immunized. But where could so much vaccine be obtained in a short time? Unhesitatingly, the Kenyans turned to Israeli Ambassador Reuven Dafni for help. Dafni cabled Jerusalem, and within two days 1,000,000 doses of vaccine had reached Nairobi. Eventually, 300,000 more doses were sent. By last week the epidemic, after claiming 47 lives, was over.

Mass vaccination of Kenyans was one of the more spectacular examples of Israel's foreign aid operation in Black Africa. The program has been functioning for a decade and, despite its relatively small scale, is one of the world's most effective. Though Israel's war machine eats up 40% of the $3.8 billion national budget, the nation's Foreign Ministry has earmarked $10 million for foreign aid this year, and half of that will go to Africa. The program has been highly cost-effective in winning diplomatic friends, as indicated by Foreign Minister Abba Eban's scheduled trip this week to seven Black African countries (Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Cameroun and Kenya).

Nation Builders. Under the aegis of the ministry's Department of International Cooperation, 250 government technicians will be working in 30 African nations during 1971 to guide 70 different aid projects. About 500 Africans, 15% of them women, will go to Israel at the same time for specialized instruction in everything from microbiology and urban planning to kindergarten teaching and union leadership. In the past decade, 6,200 Africans have received such training. "We Israelis are experienced nation builders," says Shaul Ben-Haim, Ambassador to Malawi. "That experience is about all we have to give, but it is gladly given and accepted with appreciation."

Not rich enough to provide development loans as does the U.S. —whose African aid program is 30 times as large as Israel's but not necessarily more effective—Israel asks aid recipients to share the cost: African trainees who fly to Tel Aviv usually pay their own fare and at least part of their living expenses.

The emphasis is on technical assistance in agronomy, water and soil development, highway planning, port development, fish breeding, sewage disposal, nutrition and handicrafts. Israeli experts have established citrus plantations in Madagascar and Uganda, a steamship line and a 16,000-acre cattle ranch in Ghana, a beekeeping industry in Senegal and massive poultry farms in Zambia and the Congo. In Togo, Dahomey, Upper Volta and Ghana, the Israelis have shown fascinated governments how to operate national lotteries.

One mark of the projects' success is that they have survived the worst of Africa's political upheavals. In Ghana, for instance, Israelis began working during the regime of Kwame Nkrumah, continued under the military government that toppled the dictator, and are now cooperating with the civilian government that succeeded the soldiers.