Repsonses to Poverty - Part 3: Foreign Aid & Famine

Extreme poverty and the bottom billion.

Would more money solve the problem of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries?  Paul Collier, former Director of Research at World Bank, does not think so.  He writes, “Unfortunately, it is not just about giving these countries our money.  If it were, it would be relatively easy because there are not that many.  With some important exceptions, aid does not work so well in these environments, at least as it has been provided in the past.”  He adds, “Our approach to the bottom billion [of the world’s poorest people] has been failing.  Many of these societies are heading down, not up and they are collectively diverging from the rest of the world” [ Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), xi, 190].

Collier noted another problem with aid to certain countries called “leakage.”  “Our conclusion was that some aid does leak into military spending, but surprising little—our best estimate is about 11 percent.  We estimate that something around 40 percent of Africa’s military spending is inadvertently financed by aid” [The Bottom Billion, 103].

Famine's ravaging effects.

        Michael Maren has reported on his perception of the damaging effects of USAID funds while serving 20 years in Africa as an aid worker.  Maren focused much of his book, The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity, on the country of Somalia.   Maren believes, “…Aid distribution is just another big, private business that relies on government contracts.”  Maren was hired by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Kenya and worked with a district experiencing famine.  He was to implement a “food-for-work” project in the area but did not believe the project had much chance to succeed.  Maren explains the “…people were too weak to work and it would be difficult to demand that some people dig holes and move rocks while others were getting food for doing nothing. A young woman who worked for CRS at the time and who was my immediate supervisor conceded my point but said we had to find some way to establish a program in the region.  ‘We have to take advantage of this famine to expand our regular program,’ she insisted.  For her, and the organization, famine was a growth opportunity.  Whatever the original intentions, aid programs had become an end in themselves.  Hungry people were potential clients to be preyed upon in the same way hair replacement companies seek out bald people.”

         For years Somalia has experienced famines, NGO assistance and aid.  Maren quips, “Somalia doesn’t need our help.  Somalia can feed itself.  The problems are political, and we don’t have a plan for solving their political problems.  In fact, we cause a lot of their political problems.”  He adds, “Twenty-five years ago most of the countries in Africa had indigenous methods for dealing with food shortages.  Somalia in particular had a swelling established system for dealing with regular cycles of drought and famine.”

         According to Maren, Somalia’s famines were caused primarily by Somalia itself.  “Very few policy makers understand what famine is.  They think it means there’s no food….  Famine is a failure of the market.  And you can’t fight an economic problem by giving away food.” 

Amartya Sen in “Democracy as a Universal Value” claims, “Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort.  Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence … they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and a free press.” [“Democracy as a Universal Value” in Journal of Democracy, 10:3 1999B, 8].

           Maren believes it was to Somalia’s ruling elite’s advantage to maintain a country crisis because it kept aid money flowing.  Famine refugees are good business for those who know how to use it for their advantage.  Maren cites, “The Somali government wanted the refugees to stay…[as] some government officials were getting rich stealing refugee supplies….”   Maren declares, “Starvation in Somalia was political.  It was caused by the warlords.  The solution was going to have to be political, and probably military.”  He adds, “Like most of the African continent’s famines, it had its roots not in poor harvests or droughts but in colossal malevolence on the part of the country’s civil authorities.”

        The Bible has much to say about the poor and corrupt government.  “By justice a king brings stability to a land, but a man who demands “contributions” demolishes it.  The righteous person knows the rights of the poor, but the wicked one does not understand these concerns”  (Proverbs 29:4, 7).  And, a warning is given concerning dealing unjustly with the poor, “Don’t rob a poor man because he is poor, and don’t crush the oppressed at the gate, for the LORD will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them” (Proverbs 22:22-23).

            The next blog post will report on corruption in government aid programs and specific examples where aid for the poor is syphoned off making a few people rich and leaving so many with little or no help. 

Responses to Poverty - Part 2: William Easterly

William Easterly

William Easterly does not think Jeffrey Sachs’ big plans and demand for more aid is the answer to end extreme poverty [see previous post, Response to Poverty: Part 1].  In his book, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, Easterly declares both the big plan and the demand for more aid as the absolute wrong ways to solve the poverty problem.  

Easterly refers to rich nations as the “West” and poor nations as the “Rest.”  “This is the tragedy in which the West spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades and still had not managed to get twelve-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths,” bemoans Easterly.  He continues, “The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get four-dollar bed nets to poor families.  The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get three dollars to each new mother to prevent five million child deaths…. It’s a tragedy that so much well-meaning compassion did not bring these results for needy people” [White Man’s Burden, 4-5]. 

Easterly cites two specific groups in the war on poverty—the Planners and the Searchers.  The Planners are those who dream up great and grandiose strategies to help the poor but have no accountability in the process or for any results.  Many of these planners are elitist, educators, or wealthy who are insulated from the gritty realities of poverty.  Easterly believes that Planners are far removed from poverty’s problems and therefore from its solutions.  While acknowledging Sachs’ good works in poverty fighting and development, Easterly calls him a Planner.

Easterly accuses Planners of having utopian ideas and goals.  Billions of dollars are either wasted or diverted from actually helping the poor.  Easterly explains, “A big problem with foreign aid has been its aspiration to a utopian blueprint to fix the world’s complex problems.  The utopian agenda has also led to an unproductive focus on trying to change whole political systems.  The status quo—large international bureaucracies giving aid to large national government bureaucracies—is not getting money to the poor.” [White Man’s Burden, 367-368].

Searchers on the other hand, according to Easterly, are those in the field working with the poor who actually get the job done.  Searchers are individuals, companies, or organizations that learn what is needed, supply the need and earn a return for their work.  Their plans are not huge or grandiose but piece-meal—hit or miss.  If a plan or idea misses they can quickly discard it for another product or service until it hits.  This way the public is served with what it wants and the Searcher is rewarded with a profit.

            Easterly cites an interesting case of Searchers getting the job done more effectively than the aid agencies.  “There is significant evidence to suggest that lifesaving products are more effectively distributed among the poor when they are sold than when they are given away.  The best example is the distribution of bed nets for malaria prevention in Africa.  One survey found that when free nets were distributed in Zambia, 70 percent of the recipients didn’t use them.  In Malawi, where nets were sold at affordable prices, there was nearly universal use” [White Man’s Burden, 14].

Easterly contrasts Planners and Searchers this way, “In foreign aid, Planners announce good intentions but don’t motivate anyone to carry them out; Searchers find things that work and get some reward.  Planners raise expectations but take no responsibility for meeting them; Searchers accept responsibility for their actions.  Planners determine what to supply; Searchers find out what is in demand.  Planners apply global blueprints; Searchers adapt to local conditions.  Planners at the top lack knowledge of the bottom; Searchers find out what the reality is at the bottom.  Planners never hear whether the plan got what it needed; Searchers find out if the customer is satisfied” [White Man’s Burden, 5-6].

Easterly claims that Planners like Sachs demand more aid for impoverished people and nations.  But, with all due respect to Sachs and other Planners, the past fifty years of big ideas and $2.3 trillion in aid has not solved global poverty and may have contributed to it.  The next blog post will look at the effects of foreign aid on poverty.