People on Twitter yesterday and today called attention to this thought-provoking critique of yours truly (from Chris Conrad at his blog The Big-Push: Development and Aid Effectiveness)
I did want to take issue with one of Easterly’s tweets from yesterday, in which he sardonically impugns USAID’s efforts in Afghanistan, suggesting that the most benefit Afghanis have realized from USAID’s years of war-time effort is the use of USAID-labeled vegetable oil cans to set up live WIFI nodes in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
…This is a very unproductive and mean-spirited use of anybody’s time. I honestly have no idea what Easterly expects the response to such a post to be — this adds nothing to the debate, and perversely co-opts what is otherwise very positive news into an outlet for his nihilistic worldview.
To be intellectually consistent, I have to praise criticism of myself as much as I advocate criticism of aid agencies. So thank you, Chris, for taking the time to give me thoughtful feedback. I read something like this and I re-examine if I am going too far in ridiculing unproductive aid organizations. I will consider whether to dial it down.
At the same time, I still believe in vigorous criticism of aid when it deserves it. In other fields, we recognize a constructive role of even very harsh criticism. Alec Baldwin joked at the Oscars last night that James Cameon had sent his rival director and ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow a good-luck present of “a Toyota.” This is a mean-spirited joke at the expense of a corporation that has years of quality service to consumers except for one recent accelerator pedal malfunction. And Toyota deserves every bit of it.
“Aid effectiveness” is a sleep-inducing word that has resulted in endless rounds of summits and declarations (“Accra Agenda for Aid Effectiveness, etc.) and little action. USAID is a politically entrenched bureaucracy that has gotten away with scandalous waste of billions of aid in Afghanistan. A mean-spirited joke at their expense is among the least of the consequences they should suffer.
22 Comments
A lot of people don’t seem to understand this whole line of thinking. Sometimes criticism doesn’t require a solution to be attached to be constructive, and sometimes having a personality is far more likely to get people’s attention than does having a good argument.
Unfortunately.
From the point of view of a continual student and communicator in the sectors of education, nonprofit, development, and philanthropy, I read your blogs, tweets, and research with an open mind and appreciate your sometimes harsh manner because I realize you are trying to illuminate areas that still need serious attention. I was also aware of your work because a colleague at the Center was already familiar with “White Man’s Burden” and provided me with some of your background. A positive that stems from this post is that I have learned about Chris Conrad and can follow his blog too. Critiques of all kind are necessary because they force a response, defense, and sometimes a retreat. Thank you Bill, Chris, and others who contribute to this ongoing public dialogue.
“…among the least of the consequences they should suffer”?
Nice thing to say about people working in a conflict zone.
Real nice.
You’re a class act, prof. Easterly.
One of the things Bill’s blog has helped me do is further appreciate how people in third world countries must feel when they are criticized by an outsider to their culture.
Bill worked for the World Bank, but he’s not seen as an insider in the aid world bc 1) World Bank experience is elite and distanced…you don’t get to see too much of what is happening “up close”
2) He’s not personally invested in what he’s critiquing. He has the luxury to speak freely bc he gets paid and well-known for it – whereas those of us employed by the various agencies and NGOs, do not. We do rely on our jobs and can’t pretend to be heros in meetings and scoff at our bosses or donors.
I think most people in the aid world agree with much of what Bill says bc we see it ourselves. However, when someone launches somewhat-hostile attacks rather than “engaging constructively” with our perceived community…you just end up resenting it.
It’s a good lesson for us to keep in mind when we, as outsiders, launch critiques against cultures for being too XYZ (gender inequitable, rights violators, genital mutilators, child spankers, corrupt, etc etc etc)….we should remember our messages will never be well-received – regardless if they are right – when touted by outsiders that don’t show understanding on the contraints we face in our environments, when outsiders care more about themselves than about us, and when a little humility is not in the mix.
Your criticisms aren’t wrong Bill, but I don’t think they will change anything….will likely be as ineffective as an MDG campaign – it doesn’t come from within and it doesn’t show understanding of our “culture”.
While Matt is right that criticism doesn’t need to provide a solution to be helpful…I don’t think Bill intended to be to the aid world what aid workers are to “locals”…the guys that roll in in their SUVs, drink bottled water, and boot it outta there after two hours. No one wants to be a Tasmanian Devil.
Just saying that Bill- if you can’t provide real solutions (of course you can’t – there aren’t any) – a bit less hostility and a bit more humility. pls.
Pedant alert: It’s the Accra Agenda for Action.
There’s a lot of empty rhetoric about aid effectiveness. Accra did a lot of things wrong, but got a lot of things right, too. As a statement of intent it does the job. Implementation is what matters. Criticism like that on this blog is very important; but ultimately to make a change you need to actually engage with and involve the agencies and Governments in question.
That’s what Accra starts to do, in a way that blogs like yours or mine will always struggle to match. I work in aid effectiveness for recipient Governments (I’ve done work for four in Africa now); I’ve seen how we can use these agendas to push a better use of aid, and a better information base from which to question and improve it.
You might not see the action from the birds eye view yet, but change is happening based on this. It will take time, and is no reason to hang up the poison pen, which will push us further and push other people to care about this, but it’s not fair to blanketly criticse a declaration. It’s up to the institutions involved to use it as its needed and some are.
David is exactly on point.
David makes a thoughtful response. Unfortunately the comparison is pretty flawed. Certainly foreign NGOs tend to be awkward and patronizing in their engagements with local people. And certainly, as he points out, this is largely due to their literal misunderstanding of the local situation.
However Mr. Easterly is not, although you paint him to be so, an outsider to the culture that he is criticizing. Certainly many within that culture would like to push him out, but that cannot be credibly done. Basically David’s message seems to be “Play nicer Bill” with the implicit threat that if he doesn’t his voice will be marginalized within the development community by people with hurt feelings.
This is a very attractive critique. But not persuasive given the extreme dysfunction of the aid community and, importantly, Bill’s knowledge of and status within that community. His jokes and barbs are insider jokes and barbs, not outsider criticism. We in the development community can and need to take ourselves less and more seriously. Less so that we can laugh at ourselves sometimes and enjoy Bill’s humor (although sorry Bill HRI does it better) and more seriously so that we actually engage with his criticisms instead of simply getting offended at the notion that we could be screwing things up.
Calling USAID “a politically entrenched bureaucracy” is an understatement bordering on outright misrepresentation. I would argue that it’s not even an aid agency in any conventional sense and discussing it as such does a great disservice to people doing legitimate humanitarian work. Waste is the least of it’s problems in Afghanistan. It shouldn’t even be there.
I wanted to share a story with you that was prompted by the AidWatchers posting that featured the picture of how USAID aluminum cans were being used by aid recipients in Afghanistan.
I have travelled many times to Uganda since 1998 as an independent global citizen. In 2007 I was invited to Gulu, northern Uganda by an Acholi friend. The Acholi suffered from a brutal 20+ year civil war that mostly affected innocent civilians, especially children. The atrocities have been well documented and publicized. Thankfully the region is now at peace with recovery and rebuilding taking place.
While in northern Uganda, I was given unrestricted access to several IDP camps because of the local people that I was travelling with. In a few of the IDP camps I noticed flattened USAID aluminum cans covering the doors of some of the huts. I learned that these particular huts were actually pit latrines. Only the pit latrines were “decorated” this way. I found this very peculiar. Why where the camp’s “shithole” doors decorated with USAID aluminum cans? After speaking with many of the locals, I was led to believe that this was a subtle protest to get attention.
Some of the “good intentions” that seemed to be problematic were related to food. During the war, deliveries of food to the camps by the World Food Programme was a signal to the rebels that it was time to raid the camps to replenish their own food needs. Food delivery in a conflict zone without constant security is a recipe for disaster. This disturbing fact was shared by some children that I met while in Uganda. This link shows their artistic documentation of one of the rebel raids for food:
http://www.letarttalk.org/scovia.html
Another story that was shared with me was that the USAID provisions were housed in large warehouses constructed by the WFP in Gulu. The temperature in these warehouses frequently were 100+ degrees. The provisions that had sugar content in them would ferment and turn into alcohol. I was told that occassionally these fermented provisions were distributed to the IDP camps and that the contents of the USAID aluminum cans were alcoholic. People actually got drunk courtesy of the WFP and USAID.
I am aware that these stories are not the normal everyday occurence. My hope is that these instances were acknowledged and properly resolved.
The discussion and debate that is being prompted is necessary. Constructive criticism shouldn’t be avoided, even if it is satirical. We desperately need to include local stakeholders in creating new and effective aid and development solutions.
Keep challenging the status quo and dreaming of a better way forward.
I will follow up with this some more over at my blog, but I agree that criticism of aid institutions is absolutely necessary. We must constantly question and justify the value and viability of our aid agencies. This is why Easterly’s work is so valuable and crucial in the debate over foreign assistance reform, both in this country as well as in the multilateral context.
Speaking of which, I’m curious as to whether Easterly has presented to the teams working on the PSD and/or QDDR or testified before Congress regarding either of the foreign assistance reform bills currently being considered. These are real possibilities for reform that are happening right now. I think that if he used slightly more diplomatic, yet persuasive language (like he did when testified before Congress on MDBs in 2006), he could contribute to the current reform efforts. I agree with David that he does not want to criticize and then flee the scene. There are solutions to the shortcomings of aid agencies that he wants to see implemented — he isn’t a stand-up comedian, he’s a development economist. For instance, see page 171 of The White Man’s Burden on specialization of aid agencies (comparative advantage of bilateral donors) and defining a narrower range of objectives for donor agencies (http://books.google.com/books?id=5Iw5IZCTh-kC&lpg=PP1&dq=white%20man’s%20burden&pg=PA171). Does USAID need to program as comprehensively as it does? Should Congress define a narrower national development strategy for USAID? Easterly’s academic writing clearly tends toward solutions-based as opposed to kvetch-based thinking.
I would just say, It is completely unfortunate. But well discussed about the issue here.
I admire the way you defend your ideas and points of view, even if you go beyond “the line” and what people may consider good manners. Being provocative is a way to call the attention to an issue such as aid effectiveness, that matters to people like me that care about it and learn a lot of the way you “dissect” the different aid approaches. Criticism and making fun is a good tool to communicate ideas, sadly to admit. Just wanted to tell you that I really read and love this blog mostly for the great (dark?) sense of humor of yours.
There are lots of well-meaning folks over at USAID, but that doesn’t absolve them of very deserving criticism about their extremely politicized bureaucracy. As for Transitionland’s silly comment, the reality is that the USAID folks in Afghanistan AREN’T “working in a conflict zone,” they’re all holed up in their compound, which they never leave, and they haven’t got a clue what’s going on outside the compound walls. Considering how much taxpayer money they’re spending, that is truly scandalous.
Easterly is bound to upset a few people from time to time. That’s the nature of making criticisms. Some people have vested interests, soft skins, egos, etc. Especially some of the large bureaucracies. I guess we all need to learn to accept criticism, and not see criticism of our work as personal criticism. Besides, if it weren’t for satire, the world would be a duller place by far. Imagine a world without ‘Private Eye‘.
Still, if it makes you feel better, Bill, the best satire has always provoked a backlash. I’m sur Voltaire received some pretty nast reviews to ‘Candide’ but it doesn’t stop it being one of the best critiques of philosophy ever written.
@Transitionland, what a bogus counterargument.
He was hardly making personal attacks on vulnerable USAID workers, but your offended posture doesn’t make the larger point less valid:
USAID probably shouldn’t even *BE THERE*, and you would never be able to grasp that or admit it even if you did.
B,
I’m curious. Why shouldn’t USAID *BE* in Afghanistan?
Loretta,
I chose to live in a private residence for a number of reasons, but one of them was safety. Big guesthouses are MORE likely to be targeted, not less. Yes, some of the USAID people never get out, but that doesn’t mean they’re not here, or they aren’t vulnerable. Same goes for UN employees.
Transitionland continues to miss the point – yes, the USAID folks are “there” and are “vulnerable.” The point is that they’re adding virtually NO value there, because the vast majority are sitting in their compound, focusing largely on political BS, and don’t have any understanding of how their projects are going or how the money is spent. And those that DO want to get out and see what’s really happening are often restricted from doing so, for security reasons (even though lots of other foreigners are out there doing the work). 90+% of the USAID folks focused on Afghanistan could be sitting in DC and noone in country would even notice the difference. Some might even see an improvement in their ability to get anything done.
@Transitionland:
Because USAIDs mission and execution of it are beyond being a joke? USAID’s work is ineffective and probably *negatively* effective for even the near-term good of the local community. Since you’re physically there, I shouldn’t need to cite any evidence.
I’m sorry it’s difficult, inconvenient, and potentially dangerous. But that doesn’t mean it’s holy or even worth doing. Hanging from a clothesline from my teeth is difficult too, but I don’t get to pretend that spending a year practicing doing so creates a value surplus for the world.
(No, I don’t expect you will see fit to question the mission of, or stray far from the agency that gives you a paycheck.)
is “B” …Bill?
B is definitely not Bill.
« During the war, deliveries of food to the camps by the World Food Programme was a signal to the rebels that it was time to raid the camps to replenish their own food needs. Food delivery in a conflict zone without constant security is a recipe for disaster. »
Shit. I hope at least it’s possible to make as much noise and fuss as possible about something like that.
B,
I don’t work for USAID or any of its contractors.
2 Trackbacks
[...] And Aid Watch defends itself. However, Easterly forgets to acknowledge that his blog offers little useful or inspiring [...]
[...] echo chamber and an unproductive and mean-spirited use of time. Prof. Easterly has responded by linking to their critiques, and defending the use of [...]