Official foreign aid agencies delivering aid to Africa are used to operating with nobody holding them accountable for aid dollars actually reaching poor people. Now that establishment is running scared with the emergence of independent African voices critical of aid, such as that of Dambisa Moyo.
See post from Huffington Post.
5 Comments
Well argued.
I can’t see how Sachs can show his head after this, but I suspect he will anyway.
Yes, you say it in one sentence!
Its about time, that the establishment is runnning scared! High time!
Having worked as a do-gooder physician in Tanzania and experineced human rights abuses, fostering corruption and destruction of the social fabric of the society and of well working projects or systems by “aid” – in this case by christian churches and their high ranking stelaing cerlgy without any controll – I can just congratulate you to be one of the leaders of this discussion.
The book of Moyo is great! Sometimes I thought, she could even be more bold when it comes to the benefits many employees and beneficaries of the “aid” industry get out of the present situation of ongoing “need”.
The do-gooders and the corrupt elites against the have nots – keep them have nots, it’s a business full of lies!
Rainer Brandl, Bangkok (Vienna/Dar es Salaam)
I work at USAID and don’t see anyone running scared when it comes to programming foreign assistance. In fact, I see a lot of business as usual budget planning, with the usual barely justifiable request for more money. In my office alone, we requested a 30% increase in funding for the out years without having to prove that we’ve made a difference in anyone’s life. Not even one! As much as I would like to think that this particular establishment is taking the opportunity to think critically about what we are really doing, I fear that it is not. What I would appreciate is a few practical suggestions for how I can argue against budget increases in my office, and in my bureau, when the momentum is set on self-preservation. How about some practical tips for a worker bee who is trying to heed many of your recommendations (and those of Moyo, Dichter, et al)?
The debate about aid is sickening, the critics have a better case than the Aid peddlers, but yet their prescription is far short of what is needed.
In fact they would be better off to simply demand transparency than throw one piece or another. In Moyo case it is finance, and others say export commodities, education, and the new fad is micro enterprise financed by micro loan…with no end. As if each happen independently with each other.
The solution is simple, it is transparency, let the world know where every penny goes, starting with the salary and expenses of Professor Sachs and opening up the dollar bank account of the government officials for public scrutiny. I surly hope the Prof. would not object to that, and as the beggars can not be choicer as to the government officials.
A few years back it was reported that Prof. Sachs was, might still be a board member of the Yara Foundation, the charity wing of a Norwegian chemical company Yara International that sells chemical fertilizers for many African countries. Prof. Sachs on behalf of the foundation, according to the news report awarded a Yara Prize of 200k for the PM of Ethiopia, Melse Zenawi where his country imports 400 to 500 million dollar worth of fertilizer every year with the loan guarantee from the World Bank.
The revelation created discomfort on both the PM of Ethiopia to donate the prize money to charity, and the Prof. cut short of his trip to return to New York, according to the report.
One thing is for sure in the business of the poverty industry, the corruption is bad in Africa as it is in the west. A simple solution is all Aid workers as politicians should revile their income and expenses to the public. That will send a shook wave through out the world and solve most of the problem of Aid so that we can do something about poverty.
From my experience in Africa any one in a formalwear and a laptop in the few of the five star hotels in any given African county is a suspect, let the world knows where the money goes.
For corruption to go on two must tango blaming it on one would make the other defend the practice, I am afried the prof. is making a fool of himself.
Aid is more about the giver than the receiver hence its irrelevance