[From the diaries by susanhu.] That’s the phrase William Easterly uses in an opinion piece in today’s New York Times.
He’s right, sweeping programs aren’t going to work. Not for development in Africa, at least. When we were Peace Corps Volunteers in Togo in the late 1980s …
…a friend and I wrote a pamphlet about development projects and their problems that we wanted to see made available to other volunteers. Peace Corps turned it down; we were saying that money wasn’t the answer, and neither were foreign skills. The way to help Africa develop, we said, was simply to assist home-grown projects and, if skills were needed, to find locals with them (and they do exist). Peace Corps didn’t want to hear that.
In fact, no one wanted to hear that, not then, at least. Small Is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher’s influential book) was on the outs, for the moment. And we were supposed to be bringing our ‘great’ western skills to Africa, not simply helping out with what the locals were already doing.
It wasn’t until nearly three years ago that we finally got a shortened version of the piece published, and only on the web. In the meantime, fortunately, there had been a shift in attitude amongst aid workers and planners back to recognition that the large projects had, for the most part, been a disaster for Africa, increasing debt and the distance between the rich and the poor.
Though debt for projects that did few people any good does need to be reduced and though the sentiments of Live 8 are laudable, no increase in aid from Europe and America, no grand program from abroad, is going to help Africa improve (at best, things like debt relief will only keep things from getting worse). It’s the Africans themselves who are going to have to do that. They can–and will–but only if we let them (mainly by getting out of the way) and support them (and not merely the few rich at the top).
Piecemeal. Small projects seeded through local interest and skills, fertilized (perhaps) by outsiders but not planted by them. These, not grandiose schemes, are what will help.
Aaron, your pamtphlet is superb. I’ve just begun reading it, but had to stop and say that.
“hnically-trained workers do not ask local people what is needed, or even where; by their presence, the specialists ask solely that the project, the gift, be accepted. Community interests are not taken into account; local desire is taken for granted. Not surprisingly, then, when the push behind the project leaves, so do the benefits.
“What can foreign aid workers do in the face of this? ..”
Great.
Thanks, Susan.
A hopeful sign: my co-author is returning to Africa this summer for a long stint as an auditor for USAID.
Excellent. Will she be able to post on a blog?
That’s one of her plans.
We all know how imposing one’s will on a country or people (Iraq – colonialism) already works out. Why is this such a difficult paradigm shift to make?
Good point.
If you like that piece, Susan, check out another article I did for Parallax: “A Question of Survival.” It’s on the problems faced by Africans when a game park is imposed on them.
A question for you: I saw an interview with the USAID director this am, (I think it was on Blitzer’s show), where he said that measuring financial aid via a percentage of the GDP doesn’t work for America because it has such a huge economy ie. the US would be seen as “imperializing” aid if it set such a measure as a guideline because it would be giving the lion’s share of the money as compared to other countries.
Now, I know that corruption is the number one concern when it comes to doling out money and I fully agree that supporting what local Africans say they need is the way to go, but I just wanted your opinion on that comment. Thanks.
I don’t think that’s a good reason for not giving–a rather self-serving one. But I do understand what that director is saying (if I read you right).
Probably, he wasn’t being completely straight-forward. Most aid people know that money alone isn’t the answer for Africa, but have to react to American popular opinion, which often sees money as the answer for everything.
I’m reminded of the scene in the movie Airplane where actress Julie Haggerty is showing a remote tribe how to use Tupperware. 🙂
You made me roar. That movie is priceless. (Another one that always cracks me up is “Clueless,” which was on Bravo last night.)
Oh, I’d forgotten that one! Thanks.
In the meantime, fortunately, there had been a shift in attitude amongst aid workers and planners back to recognition that the large projects had, for the most part, been a disaster for Africa, increasing debt and the distance between the rich and the poor.
The intent of large projects is not improvement, it’s control. The book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” shows this strategy in all its ugly, brutal, greedy ways. But I think we’re talking apples and oranges here. Debt relief breaks the loan sharking and allows that money to go into communities. Trade justice seeks to do the same.
As for the third piece, aid, humanitarian aid should be given without strings and without expectations. Allowing thousands to die from hunger and thousands more from disease, both 100% preventable, is unacceptable. There is no “getting out of the way” in preventing the staggering daily death toll from hunger and disease.
Everyone can have their own opinion on long term solutions. In the short term, our western food and medicine can save thousands every day.
In 1985, there was enough food in West Africa to feed the starving that Live Aid was concerned with. For a number of reasons, it was easier to import grain from Brazil (and other places) instead. I remember buying canned fish from Canada in Mopti, Mali in 1987 that had been meant for aid but ended up in the commerce stream. Did that really help Africa?
Yes, the starving should be fed–but they can be fed from Africa. What we need to do is assist Africans in finding ways of doing that instead of simply dumping food on them.
Take malaria as another example: the best way to get rid of it is to get rid of the anopheles gambiae mosquito rather than simply treating cases. The people we save from malaria today will die from it tomorrow if we ignore that. Here again, it has to be Africans at the forefront if a campaign against the mosquito is going to succeed.
Long term vs. short term. In any crisis, you have to find long term and short term solutions.
In the short term, your can of Canadian fish isn’t sufficient to conclude that international aid didn’t really help Africa. That’s like saying donating to the homeless in this country is a waste because one homeless person sold the coat he or she was given. No one is talking about “dumping food” on Africa, in fact Live 8 is not dumping anything, it’s intent is to raise awareness and pressure the G8 countries to address the long and short term problems.
The campaign to eradicate malaria in this country spanned decades. Mexico has made great progress, but malaria is still a problem there. To me, it is not only unrealistic but inhumane to assume that countries in Africa can and will surpass the eradication efforts of the United States and Mexico. In the present and until that time, prevention is necessary.
Can you imagine hearing this conversation during the great depression? I sure can – from those who resisted and hated the New Deal.
My point wasn’t about whether or not the aid helped Africa, but that it would have been better for Africa if its own resources had been used. That would have been both a short-term and a long-term solution (it would have given quite a boost to African agriculture).
In the late 1940s, it was assumed that malaria would be wiped out in a decade. That didn’t happen–and not, as the right would have you think–because of the ban on DDT. It didn’t happen because local governments in much of the developing world did not have the will (or the popular support) for the types of programs that would have led to the demise of the mosquito. Programs to eradicate breeding grounds are effective–and quick–if universally implemented. They are both a short-term and long-term solution (we know much more about how to do this than we did when the US was fighting malaria–so your assumption that it would take decades today is, well, decades out of date).
Finally, I’m sorry, but your “New Deal” analogy makes no sense at all, so I can’t respond to it.
Is the same discussion about poverty, what causes poverty and whether the most fortunate should have any responsibility for ending poverty, whether aid is helpful or hurtful, throwing money or food at the poor and the shouldn’t they be given the “opportunity” to pull themselves out of their own poverty. Keep in mind what caused the great depression.
It was argued that the New Deal was creating a welfare society, that outside interference that would only undermine the community and actually inhibit local resources, corrupt government and squander precious resources in needless give-aways.
Remind me where I say the fortunate have no responsibility for ending poverty. They most certainly do, but “we” (the fortunate) should not imagine that we are more able to solve problems than are those who have been less fortunate. Especially someone else’s problems.
Nothing in what I am saying has anything to do with warning against creating a welfare state through “outside interference.”
Certainly, outside interference does “undermine the community and actually inhibit local resources, corrupt government and squander precious resources,” but that’s not an excuse for inaction–and I would never make it one.
If you think anything I’ve said is an excuse for inaction, then you aren’t reading what I wrote, but what you imagine I wrote. I’m saying we need to act intelligently, not in a knee-jerk fashion. In terms of Africa, acting intelligently starts with listening to the people who know most about Africa (the Africans) and then, as much as possible, following their lead.
That has absolutely nothing to do with either the New Deal or with the great depression.