Slow Motion.

This is an argument that seems to surface quite frequently – both from people on online forums and blog sites, and also in academic literature and pseudo-academic websites. It popped up again in my comments on my previous blog post. I started replying to it, and realised that it would probably do better as a post of it’s own, even if only due to sheer length.

And so, here it is. The comments from Carson Sasser are in italics. My response follows.

I’m certainly no expert on all this, but I have seen studies that have found direct monetary assistance actually hurts these people. What we need to do is help them get rid of their corrupt governments and install a free-market based economy. Or else we will have to help them again next year and the next and…

That’s a theory that’s popularly thrown around, but it’s very contentious, because you could just as easily argue that the reason Africa’s government officials are corrupt is because Africa is poor – it doesn’t have the infrastructure necessary to allow people to hold their governments accountable.

In any case, it’s kinda irrelevant to our Western governments giving ODA – it’s a measly amount per person to begin with, which means it has a very small likelihood of producing a visible result for the better. And on top of that, our governments could disperse that money through channels other than the official goverments in African states if they suspect corruption. There are plenty of NGO’s, UN groups, and various grassroots organisations that could do a lot of good with that money and not have it lining the Swiss bank account of the African official.

But to say that giving them money is wrong? No.

They could always benefit from having new facilities – schools, roads, sanitation, drinking water, basic health services, and health initiatives such as bed nets to keep away the malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Stuff like this costs money, and it’s definitely not money that would just be wasted.

You know what does waste money though? Phantom aid. For example, ‘we’ll give you money and you spend it on our consultants’, or ‘we’ll give you money and you have to spend this much on our products – even if you don’t need them, and even if you could get them cheaper/better quality from elsewhere’. Or debt relief for countries who aren’t paying their debts anyway – which is technically giving them money, but it’s all on paper; there is no practical benefit.

It would be true to say that aid is wasted if all we did was buy them food and drop it off at their doorsteps – but that’s not what’s happening. We do that during emergencies, when there are people who will literally die right now unless we ship them some food – but that’s not an efficient way to spend the money in the long run, and we don’t do it.

Africa is a resource rich continent populated with people. North America is a resource rich continent populated with people. So, what makes the difference? Why are most of them living in poverty while most of us are doing a lot better?

Well, firstly, Africa is not exactly ‘resource rich’. Some areas may be, but ‘Africa’ is not a country – it’s a continent. I know this is saying something so very obvious, but it’s something people don’t think about all too often. Africa is a continent. It is made up of many smaller countries. Each country has it’s own government, it’s own resources, it’s own problems and people.

We also have to consider where they’re coming from. They were colonised up until about 50 years ago, when during the 60’s, many of the African countries gained independence. In terms of history, 50 years is nothing. And that’s assuming they’d be starting from scratch, when really, starting out on your own feet after a long haul under colonialism is not easy. As with most post-colonial nations, the first stage is authoritarian rule.

On top of that, Africa is a very big continent. Again, obvious, right? The problem is that our trade is still heavily reliant on the traditional method of shipping – literally, shipping, in a ship. And, well, there aren’t many major rivers in the African continent. Most of Africa is rural, and rural areas are unlikely to have paved roads. Africa is in the middle of the tropics, and gripped with the health problems that come along with it, especially malaria. They’re a huge expanse, with the rural people dispersed throughout, which means that organising help and services is quite the task unless you have people doing it through a bottom-up, grassroots sort of effort.

Africa has a lot of problems, but the truth is that many of these could be solved by throwing a bit of money at the situation. The people could benefit from education programs [at least basic primary education - which, by the way, is shown to have so many side benefits! Girls have less children, for example, if you just give them the basic 5 years of education.], health services, and all the other things I mentioned before. They can put that money to good use, and we can afford to give it.

I think what would benefit a lot of people was if we quit branding all the types of aid under the one banner of ‘foreign aid’ or ‘official development aid’. It comes in many guises, and each serves a different purpose, with different outcomes. Morgenthau identified the 6 main types of aid: humanitarian foreign aid, subsistence foreign aid, military foreign aid, bribery, prestige foreign aid, and foreign aid for economic development.

But you know that something is wrong with our system when the US war in Iraq counts as foreign aid. Surprised? It’s military aid.

Or when the US implements a new law into Iraq which makes it illegal for Iraqi farmers to plant seeds they’ve saved from crops. Nup. Instead, they have to buy all their new seeds from the American corporation in charge of dispersing a new, patented brand of seeds. This is subsistence aid at it’s finest. [Yes, sarcasm.]

So in short, no, I don’t think that increasing our ODA is hurting the poor. I think the exact opposite: it would really help the poor – as long as enough is given, and as long as it’s given through the right channels, so the right people benefit from it.