Someone sent me this link on Facebook: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

I'm not sure what to make of the interview, because reading it you might get the impression that aid is the only thing the west is doing wrong. Aid is only one facet of a bigger problem - how the west exerts power and influence over these countries.

The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape.

An ambiguous observation because the countries have to follow the IMF's 'advice' to qualify themselves for aid, and the more aid they need, they're obviously bad pupils, so have more restrictions placed on them. The ones that have done the best have only selectively following IMF advice, and by implication disqualified themselves from all the aid going. So this could equally be about the soundness of the IMF's steering influence in the first place. For this question to be purely about aid, we'd need an example of a country that's followed all of the IMF's advice, but taken none of its money. I don't think there is such an example. His explanation of the paradox:

Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa's problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn't even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

I could dig out loads of examples where any entrepreneurship is nipped in the bud because of the lack of any kind of framework (fair laws, fair courts, readily available credit, etc) that promotes such healthy intentions. When that framework isn't there, as we've seen in Russia with shock therapy, the only kind of entrepreneurship is asset-stripping and corruption. So can the question of how to make these frameworks develop be reduced to aid versus no aid? I think it's far more complicated than that. Similarly with seeing Africa as a 'beggar', the analogy doesn't answer any questions, it only makes us more likely to reach certain views without looking at the full complexity of the situation first.

Another thing that causes African countries problems is trade barriers, and EU and US subsidies of their own produce to make it internationally competitive. The latter issue is a separate heated debate and it's a lot easier for those in favour of subsidies when they can consider the damage they do as part of the separate Aid Question. Drug patents, vulture funds, currency speculation, etc, all contribute problems but have nothing to do with aid.

I think he has some good points with his analysis of the World Food Program. But unless farmers can actually make a living from their produce, it won't happen. They'll never be able to do so while the price of imported grain undercuts them (because of EU and US subsidies). If they put tariffs on imports, then they get in trouble with powerful countries. They can't win. Fostering a market economy is not a simple issue at all. If the government wanted to improve roads so that farmers could get their produce to markets more easily, then they wouldn't meet IMF spending targets. If they want to provide an educated workforce, then in the case of poorest countries, the IMF spending targets would mean they have to charge parents for educating their children. It's perverse.

While I wouldn't put my full trust in all the statistics about AIDS, I don't see what the point of talking it down is. After all there are enough religious people who are happy to brush it under the carpet as they see it as wages for sin, and would like to continue with their insane abstinence-only approach. So as far as how big the AIDS problem actually is, the only relevant issues should be whether they have the relevant knowledge and means to bring it under control themselves, and if they don't, how we can help. I think they would be morally justified in pirating any drugs that would help, but if they did this they'd be in trouble under international law. As for malaria, its tragedy is that it's so easily preventable.

The rest of the interview is more of the same, with a theme of rather than giving the Africans stuff, work out some way of letting them provide themselves with it instead. The nub of the debate is identifying the ends and the means - whether the converse of a statement is true or not: Yes, with enough development, Africa won't need aid. But will no aid cause development?

I found the Reith Lectures 2007 by Geoffrey Sachs, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/, very interesting. The same for the book "Globalization and its Discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz. Both people are economics experts, and they're both broadly in favour of globalization but I don't think they'd share this guy's views.

I figured I'd change to LiveJournal to consolidate my blogging presence, which would provide a more integrated Somerhawke experience and therefore a more focused brand image.

Blerghh.