"The process by which money is taken from poor people in rich countries and given to rich people in poor countries".
Yeh, call me a cynic, but I believe more and more that it's so, so true.
Well, that's one aspect of it, namely the diverting of funds to improper uses and the corruption that both gives rise to it, and feeds off it. Mobutu, who was president of Zaire, had a fortune estimated to be $5 billion - though "only" a few million of these were ever tracked down, so perhaps there was some exaggeration.
What's worse, though, is the way aid destroys local economies.
Where you see starvation, you naturally want to do something about it. But what happens in a place where food is limited? Prices rocket, right? Is that good or bad? Now before you say "bad", think about what happens when food is expensive. Farmers and distributors see a way of making a fast buck and start providing food. More see what is happening and jump on the bandwagon. The supply is established and prices start to drop as suppliers compete.However, the response of the West is to ship in food and distribute it for free. We've all seen the kids scrabbling for it - distressing, but at the same time gratifying. Except we don't think of what that dumping of free food does for the local economy. Anyone with a small surplus to sell is wiped out. Anyone thinking of taking the risk / expense of planting and harvesting food stops, because there is no point.
It's rather as if a friendly Martian touched down on Main Street, Peoria Illinois, and started handing out free washing machines. Many people would be delighted, but don't be surprised when in a year's time, and the Martians are gone, that the suppliers of washing machines have been wiped out.OK, we have the vagaries of the weather to deal with, war and all that. I accept that the picture is complex, but I deny that it is complicated. You have only to ask which countries are complete basket cases, and which received most foreign aid to see a correlation.
Make sure you understand causation first. For example, it does not rain so that plants can grow; plants grow because it rains. I suggest we start thinking about aid the same way. Do we provide aid because countries are poor? Or are countries poor because we provide aid?
Postscript:
After I wrote this I came across an item where the international aid group, Care, is getting concerned about the same thing, here.
4 comments:
I've long thought that education and empowerment are the most powerful forms of upliftment. Giving funds is, as you say, far too much like a band-aid - it's a temporary measure and ultimately either ends up in the wrong hands and/or achieves very little. But give people an education, show them how to uplift themselves and then you create a very different social order.
That's true AV. Even there I would want to tread carefully. We seem to have had an epidemic of social engineering for the last 100 years. Some consequences good, but I believe many more bad.
Hello. Thanks for stopping by at mine. On your post, it does astonish me that in this day and age there is such widespread poverty and hunger at all. And yes, aid is much like a band-aid on a broken arm. Better than nothing, but it doesn't solve the problem.
Hi GBS. It is astonishing that there should be poverty and hunger - well, yes and no. I am a great believer in the simple things, like the "automatic" regulation of supply and demand through the price mechanism.
When there is a lot of supply (which there is with food) the price would be driven down without government interference. Witness how the once mighty phone companies beg for our business on almost any terms these days.
But in both developed and developing countries goverment has a hunger for regulation and interference, the consequences of which are almost certain to be disasterous.
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