$1:
First off, she offers no alternative. perhaps she's right--it's the theft of corrupt leaders that robs food from the mouth of African children. What's the answer then? Just the Ebenezer Scrooge "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!" No, not good enough, I'm afraid. To want to give food to a hungry child is a natural human instinct.
Secodnly, there's something of the "Let them eat cake" in her argument. We are so abominably rich compared to those in the meaner parts of Africa a mere pittance from us can have far reaching consequence there. To be making several thousand times their income and be saying "no, sorry, can't spare a dime" doesn't cut it for me.
I think it's great that you are asking that, because I think having people ask those questions and similar ones like those are a chief goal of this journalist, and I think that's what makes it an effective article. Writing this a little tired, like usual (CKA is too much of a night time activity for me, haha!) so I apologize if what I write is confusing.
There's really been no end to discussion about development panaceas and their failures, and how these failures are exacerbated in part by the UN and public perception, over the last few years. I know I've been beating this book a few times now across a few topics, but I like sticking with the same book for multiple examples. The book is called "The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics" and was written by previous UN employee William Easterly (I was impressed to see him referenced in this article), who has gone on to a set of fairly impressive academic positions. It discusses a lot of the alternatives, and why they fail when attempts to apply them occur. There is also discussion on why nations which have seen the greatest amount of assistance have also seen some of the most dramatic failures, whereas other nations we did not help as much have made much more progress towards the eradication of poverty.
I think the aim of this article was more to point out "Hey, it's time for people to begin looking at where this money is going" rather than to discuss alternatives, although I hope that with articles like this more critical light will come around to focus on aid agencies. I find far too many people are willing to support something which sounds good but don't consider what goes on past the surface or beginning commitment. There have been numerous articles on what developing countries have demanded over the past few years which we living in the developed countries have refused to give, whilst extolling the importance of our own farmers and such in our own borders and attempting to ignore the fact that such trade patterns have the lovely effect of raising prices inside those borders and perpetuating poverty. When viewed in the context of these alternatives which have been discussed at every major trade event which has involved developed and developing nations for several decades now, I think the fact that this article is not directly bringing it's own alternatives out is not as important to me as it would otherwise be.
An exhaustive viewing or even a summary of failures or suspected paths to success would be an impressive article to read but even experienced economists like Easterly need a book to discuss it. Suggested alternatives like reduction in agricultural subsidies (a form of aforementioned trade reform) would go a long way to producing many benefits, even though many who somehow support both the cause of those in conditions which are poverty ridden and farmers fail to recognize this. There are a few cases where this has been reviewed, such as the American sugar subsidies, which would have massive economic benefits for numerous nations with rampant poverty.
Keep in mind also that when that money leaves your pocket it's very hard to know where it goes. Many of these nations do to have the infrastructure to effectively manage the money given to them. Many of them are corrupt. Many dictators have billions of dollars to their name, even after they are ousted, and often large portions of that money is not seen again. A lot of nations fail to meet goals given to them by UN bodies, but for some reason bodies like the IMF, perhaps so driven by the debt-based system they drive, are fine with waving development goals time and time again for nations which have not me them, billions upon billions of dollars later. Meanwhile, other nations, like Chile or Brazil, managed to dust themselves off with much less help and are well on their way to eradicating poverty in their nations. That we cannot effectively change the mandate of even a multinational and international body responsible to us all to help the people who need help is concerning at the most basic level. The amount of funding which goes to these bodies and which by extension goes to bodies which are similar is also concerning.
One of my favourite examples of a well constructed NGO is the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The effects it has had are positive in numerous ways, and the indicators of poverty reduction, literacy rates, health rates and standards of living associated with the success of that organization are excellent. But we don't often see NGOs that function like that where independent bodies can come in and effectively see those results. When dealing with a lot of aid organizations based on a concept which is, for example, neo-malthusian, you are going to see them defend it, evidence or no. Ideas like population reduction are disputable, since studies on that topic are conflicted between women having as many children as they want, or one more than they want. Condoms are not exactly difficult to use and even flooding these regions which cheap contraceptives was often not incentive enough for extensive use to be seen. Even when there was access to medical centers, many children are still born. Education is all well and good, but when there are not jobs that can use this education, either the children are kept at home to help care for the family or they go abroad and we end up blaming them as immigrants or ourselves for the brain drain phenomenon. In areas where we do see changes in standards of living, I at times wonder if the journalists are confusing what came first in this web of correlation and causality, the economic growth or the reduction in population growth rates.
That this is on top of the problems mentioned on top of those in the article, as well as myriad other political, social and economic issues, it makes the topic one which is messy. There's way too many special interests groups and people with vested interest to provoke change without extensive questioning of the current set up. Have we seen the results we are expecting? Is the money being put to where it could be most used? Are we missing too many development quotas? What is causing these problems? These are critical problems which have time and again been avoided in the name of faceless altruism, and because we avoid these questions in the name of faceless altruism the self sacrifice and charity of our people ends up going to waste.
That's the important part of this article. Why is it that we, as a nation, do ask what alternatives there are? Why are we stuck on this same course? Are things have the same effect, and if so, why is there so much concern from various academic communities about the potentially negative effects going on here? Is what we are doing actually good for these nations? Why are the nations we most extensively help worse off? Are these nations still in this condition because of a lack of funding, or poor infrastructure/corruption, or somewhere in between? What can we as an economic power do? Will what we do to help them help us as well? Is there a mutually beneficial action? In my mind, getting people who read this article to ask these questions is a good thing. It doesn't matter if they are lefty or righty on the scale of politics or ideals, I think we can all agree that if there is a better path it would be a good idea to look for it. If we look at this article as we aren't asking these questions, or aren't at least more willing to ask these questions in the future, as Zipperfish has, I would think that the journalist had missed their mark.
In any case, thanks for the linkage, I appreciated the great read!
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