"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"

July 8, 2005 10:44 AM

"For God's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!"says Kenyan economist James Shikwati. His point is that economic aid from developed countries destroys the economies of African countries by eliminating entrepreneurship and the need for free trade.
posted by falameufilho (70 comments total)

That's a good interview, but I recommend the link on the right which I think gives a better overview. Both finally provides some concrete indication of why "throwing money at the problem" may not fix the problem, if not create an even bigger one -- in a way that doesn't sound like a cheap ass excuse for not giving.
posted by dreamsign at 11:02 AM on July 8, 2005

In a similar vein, we should cut welfare to the lazy corrupt poor, even if it means starving their children, who will, in turn, learn how to help themselves.
posted by iamck at 11:03 AM on July 8, 2005

For the sake of a good thread, can we please read the articles before commenting? Just this one time?
posted by dreamsign at 11:07 AM on July 8, 2005

In a similar vein, we should cut welfare to the lazy corrupt poor, even if it means starving their children, who will, in turn, learn how to help themselves.

In a similar vein, we should unquestioningly submit to coercion by the government bureaucrat arbiters of worthy charity, rather than exercise individual choice in our giving.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:12 AM on July 8, 2005

I really don't think that most African economies are developed enough such that entrepeneurship and free trade are sufficient.

An argument for the poverty in Africa is that, at root, there simply is not enough natural resources and, in relation to that, it's badly overpopulated. This would make it "rich" in potential human resources in the context of world trade, but the problem is that in many ways an economy has to be relatively quite developed in order to realize this potential.

Health, education, social and government stability...all these are things in which Africa, sadly, trails behind the entire rest of the world. It is a very long way from being able to have its human resources be valuable. Without a lot of natural resources, there's no "easy" way in which to create wealth to rectify these problems.

For all these reasons, even though I'm a strong believer in the greater utility of market economics, I don't think there's any way forward for Africa that doesn't rely on huge amounts of international aid, and, controversialy, intervention.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:13 AM on July 8, 2005

It [meaning live 8, tony blair stuff] is not aid, it's debt relief. No longer demanding that someone give you money is not the same thing as giving them money. They get to keep the money they've already made.

This is money that could be turned around and used, by these governments, to provide cheap loans to entrepreneurs to get started. Nothing promotes entrepreneurship like low-interest loans.

Or they could use the money to provide their own ridiculous farm subsidies to compete with our ridiculous farm subsidies.

Allowing governments to spend the money they earn through taxes on their own countries, rather then send the money to western countries

In a lot of cases, these loans were bundled with provisions that should, in the mind of raving economic neo-cons (read: super-lasisfair-capitalist), will help the economy. In reality, these policies are disastrous. Look at the "shock therapy" they gave to Russia, which created a practical kleptocracy for almost a decade.

Usually they just require less regulation and what not, allowing western companies to loot the nation.

The countries might have had a chance to grow if they were allowed to set rational economic policies rather then ideological ones.

When the US wanted Japan to become a "shining beacon of Capitalism" they abetted the Japanese in putting in isolationist economic policies, while giving Japanese companies free rein in America. The result? By 1980 Japan had half the worlds cash. Yet, these IMF types often require the exact opposite for the poor countries they "help". They open their markets, only to be bombarded by cheap, subsidized, agricultural products from the US and Europe that local farmers can't compete with.

the United Nations World Food Program -- which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated.

Is he serious? He thinks that the people who run the world food program won't be able to find jobs if world hunger is solved? What an asclown. Local farmers couldn't compete with American and European ones because of the massive subsidies that go on over here. It really is cheaper to buy US corn in Africa then buy it from local African farmers, AID or know because of the subsides.

Debt relief is about damage control, undoing some of the damage caused by crazed neo-cons and their ideological voodoo economics.
posted by delmoi at 11:15 AM on July 8, 2005

Very interesting, and raises a point that few outside Africa really consider: aid distorts local economies. Why make anything for yourself when you're going to be put out of business when the next planeload comes in?

I also thought that the distinction between disaster aid (tsunami) or reconstruction (Marshall plan) on the one hand, and humanitarian aid on the other, was useful.
posted by mcwetboy at 11:18 AM on July 8, 2005

I am beginning to feel like no matter a peoples intention one nation cannot grant another nation prosperity and democracy.

The American Right is learning the hard way that you cannot 'give' Iraq a democracy. The American Left and much of the generous industrial world is learning that you cannot give people an economy they do not understand or have a cultural stake in participating in.

Still, the whole world has a vested interest in working to eliminate poverty so as to stop problems like terrorism and the growing of illegal drug crops. Even if we have to find new ways to help (concentrate on infrastructure, hire and train locally) I can't believe that lassie fair is the best route for the developed world to take.
posted by BeerGrin at 11:18 AM on July 8, 2005

Another article in the same vein by a different author. Different spin and wish list.
posted by ilsa at 11:20 AM on July 8, 2005

In a similar vein, we should unquestioningly submit to coercion by the government bureaucrat arbiters of worthy charity, rather than exercise individual choice in our giving.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:12 PM EST on July 8 [!]

I wish the right would aply that line of thought to more than just their wallet.
Who is a bureaucrat to tell me who to fuck or marry?
posted by BeerGrin at 11:21 AM on July 8, 2005

Reading this interesting link, and having enjoyed Live 8, it's hard not to think that in 2025, there will be another goddamn rock concert and much of Africa will not really have progressed. I hope it does, but the structural corruption seems to prevent any qualitative advances. Color me cynical.
posted by bardic at 11:22 AM on July 8, 2005

For all these reasons, even though I'm a strong believer in the greater utility of market economics, I don't think there's any way forward for Africa that doesn't rely on huge amounts of international aid, and, controversialy, intervention.

I think there is...but perhaps it just runs in the family.

My uncle started an non-profit, KickStart that designs simple technologies (oil presses, irrigation pumps, the like) that can then be manufactured, sold and bought by Kenyans. People save up for one of ApproTEC/KickStart's pumps have been able increase their income enough to invest in livestock and send their children to school. And they have done it on their own, without any direct monetary aid. And if KickStart ever "pulls out," these farmers will be just fine because they weren't reliant on charity -- they bought the pump on their own, and they use it to increase their own profits.

The KickStart website probably explains it a lot better than me, but it makes sense.
posted by puffin at 11:23 AM on July 8, 2005

Africa 2025: No more goddamned rock concerts.

This was a very interesting interview indeed. I am shamefully ill-informed about political and economic goings on in Africa, so it was hard for me to determine if Shikwati is a true visionary or an ideological shill, or both, or neither. Definitely piqued my interest enough to educate myself about this further. Thanks, falameufilho!
posted by psmealey at 11:30 AM on July 8, 2005

I did a paper on this in college. Michael Maren's book, The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Effects of Foreign Aid and International Charity is full of excellent information on the same topic. Of all my research, I think the two most startling and important things that I learned are that:

A.) Most areas in the world have more than an adequate supply of food. The real issue is that people are so impoverished that they cannot afford to buy food and/or that they do not have access to food because the food supply is controlled by military regimes, politicians, rebels, etc.

B.) The West is profiting from foreign aid. American grain companies want to give away grain because we have a surplus and it would actually cost them more to store the grain than it would to "donate" it to poor nations. We do this despite the fact that the food we are giving, in many cases, does not suit the regional and cultural diet of the people. To be more succinct, I would say this is just another means of promoting the Western lifestyle and diet.

The subject is much, much more complex that that, but those are two issues that are mostly ignored and that Americans are usually unaware of.
posted by crapulent at 11:30 AM on July 8, 2005

The American Left and much of the generous industrial world is learning that you cannot give people an economy they do not understand or have a cultural stake in participating in.

I think we should hesitate before a statement like that. Are you implying that such an economy, identical in all other forms, if somehow "earned" by African nations, would work? I.e. who in their right mind would ever want an economy like that? In the same token, who in Iraq wants a "democracy" like the one their faced with? In the words of a cleric I can't source but read about on Juan Cole, "the Americans gave us only the freedom of pillage." The "economy" that we seem to have given to Africans is one of exploitation propped up by massive shipments of food to keep millions of people just on the cliff-edge of starvation. Some gift.

Africans, being human beings, would probably develop a more-or-less rational economy if left to their own devices, which seems to be the gist of this article--of course, what needs to be established is how much of the mess is self-inflicted... which is where it all gets mind-boggling...

but, most importantly, noone should have a "cultural stake" in such a poor excuse for an economy.
posted by goodglovin77 at 11:33 AM on July 8, 2005

The guy has some legitmacy because he's from Africa, but I'm not sure I buy it all. His take on Aids numbers, for instance, is inconsistent with stuff I've seen at conferences about Aids (medical conferences, not aide conferences). His contention that retesting has shown lower numbers of HIV infected people: But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It's not three million Kenyans that are infected, can also be explained by people who had the disease dying (if the number is really correct.)

I thought the most interesting thing in the article was this:

In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there.

because it suggests that African countries don't trade with each other. For some reason this is quite surprising to me. A modern day triangle trade. Does anyone know more about this?
posted by OmieWise at 11:33 AM on July 8, 2005

puffin, wasn't there something about this company on PBS recently?
posted by bardic at 11:35 AM on July 8, 2005

I'm glad to finally know why all the aid to starving Ethiopia in the 80's was a mistake. As for these Ethiopian cuisine restaurants which are popping up here and there now (no connection to the former at all, I'm sure), imagine how much better their management would be if those lazy Ethiopians had learned to fend for themselves back then.

I'm quite sure it will be a real turn on for James Shikwati, that so many educated westerners are giving his sentiments such consideration, as he could probably found a new school of Economics, in which influxes of capital are considered negative.

To all those who wish to destroy the US, please just write us a check. We will languish under your support program.
posted by nervousfritz at 11:38 AM on July 8, 2005

Health, education, social and government stability...all these are things in which Africa, sadly, trails behind the entire rest of the world.

You seem to have forgotten property rights.
posted by Kwantsar at 11:46 AM on July 8, 2005

Let's not kid ourselves. "entrepreneurship" and "free trade" means renting out the poor as cheap, easily exploited labor. Look at China; they've got "free trade" every which way you look nowadays. And it primarily consists of factories in which Chinese workers manufacture cheap goods for Western markets while receiving extremely low pay and working in extremely dangerous conditions. A small number of Chinese are getting rich off of this arrangement, but the vast majority of those who participate are getting screwed pretty hard.

I mean, Shikwati talks about the horror of being dependent on foreign aid, but would you rather depend on the UN's food programs or on the generosity of Nike and Mattel? Because, currently, the latter two have an awful lot of say so in who eats and who doesn't in certain segments of Chinese society. And China isn't even a third world country. In Guatemala or Viet Nam, the story is going to be much, much worse.

Should third world countries develop their own infrastructures? Should they be improving education and social services and creating their own businesses to satisfy their own needs? Absolutely. But the only way that's going to happen is if general population has a significant measure of political power. And obviously, this isn't the case in most of these countries. As Shikwati points out, the governments are corrupt. These officials who siphon off the aid money... how is it that they're getting away with it? If everyone loathes them, how is it that they stay in power? Well, ultimately, it's because the police and the military back them. And who arms the police and the military? Often, it's the government of a first world country like the US.
posted by Clay201 at 11:46 AM on July 8, 2005

This guy is full of shit. Or rather, half full.
See, the problem is that on some things he's right: giant aid programs really do benefit the West more than they benefit the recipients. Our grain subsidies do mean that Africans can't compete. And we do distort the market (I'll leave aside the argument that there isn't a free market in the history of the world). That's kinda the Marshall Plan/Post-war Modernist Aid (think of it as Modernist; it goes along well with Modernist urban planning etc.)
On the other hand, we give aid through microgrants, through low-interest loans, through equipment subsidies, through grants to pay for localized education and training, to pay for telecom infrastructure, and indigenous agriculture. We encourage through aid sustainable development and targetted growth. That's just as real.
So the problem with folks like this is that they see some aid come in that definitely has deliterious effects on their economy, and instead of being able to get our attention with cries of "Stop sending us stupid aid that benefits only you!" they have to shout about ending all aid to get any attention.
The other real problem is that it's unlikely that the West will stop giving the harmful aid and continue only with the helpful aid. In order to give aid at all, we have to see some benefit out of it. And since the folks who tend to be opposed to giving aid are generally the realists (we'll leave aside the labels of right/left for a moment and use realists verses internationalists), they have to be convinced that there's some benefit to them in giving the aid. To do that, we need to continue to do things like give American farmers truckloads of cash for their corn, in order to get additional cash to teach Africans how to make screenless hammermills.
So, long post short: It's complicated, and anyone who shouts a simple answer is an idiot or a liar, and sometimes a bit of both.
posted by klangklangston at 11:54 AM on July 8, 2005

No longer demanding that someone give you money is not the same thing as giving them money.

No, it is in fact exactly the same thing. For example, in the U.S. you have to pay income tax on a forgiven debt.
posted by kindall at 11:55 AM on July 8, 2005

Shikwati must have gone to the Ayn Rand School for Tots when he was a tyke. "Helping is futile".

My worthless 2c is that sometime in the next century or two the value of Africa as an undeveloped nation will draw large scale development efforts. Look at the US and China, as they developed, they created large amounts of wealth. I imagine that there will eventually be plenty of incentive to invest in Africa, when the time is ripe.

disclaimer: I don't know wtf I'm talking about.
posted by modernerd at 11:55 AM on July 8, 2005

Interesting commentary that goes in a differnt direction than I had been thinking was posetd above by
goodglovin77 at 2:33 PM EST on July 8 [!]

Well here is two sets of questions that while based on the same premise are pretty divergent. Admittedly I was not getting into a qualitative review of a market economy or a representative democracy. I also was not really directing my attention to the facts on the ground per se regarding how the Iraq situation is going. Really I was comparing starving vs. market economy and not idealized local economy vs. market economy. As far as Governance I think Sir Winston was right when he said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. ". Really the problems you point to and the criticisms from the Cleric you mentioned support my point that you cannot "give" someone a Democracy. They have to want one and most likely they must build it for themselves.

Really, I think, both of our lines of questions lead to a similar new lines of questions. Can conditions for a homegrown African economy develop in the modern world where international markets drive demand and pricing? Would the industrial world have to pull out both its aid and its trade in order of that to happen? If we pulled aid out and not trade, wouldn't the market forces already at work continue to drive the prices of African goods down to level that would not support the African populace? (All of these are honest questions, not rhetorical tools.)
posted by BeerGrin at 11:59 AM on July 8, 2005

Argh. Hey kids: Terminology primer.

Africa is a continent, not a nation or country.
Third-world refers to non-aligned countries, from when the West was the First World, and Soviet Countries were the Second World. Underdeveloped, developing or less-developed nations are more apt, though those are still controversial.
China IS a developing nation. It's just fuckin' huge, and is developing rapidly. The fact that they have slave labor is pretty well indicative of their developing status. More than anything, China's authoritarian bosses want to be seen as developed. Don't give 'em the satisfaction.

Free Trade and Globalization are not the same thing. Free Trade is a component of something called "liberalism" (here generally called "economic liberalism") that argues that freer markets tend to be more mutually beneficial. While most people accept that as true, the problem is in balancing free markets with localized government and national sovereignty. Add to that the fact that the West has not, HAS NOT freed up their markets to respond to the reduced restriction in developing nations' markets, and that's the general argument against economic liberalism. See the EZLN in Mexico.

Hmm... I don't think there's anything from this thread that I've missed, but I might angrily lecture more, if so moved.
posted by klangklangston at 12:05 PM on July 8, 2005

I think William Easterly is the most thoughtful and prolific in the anti-aid camp.
posted by diftb at 12:10 PM on July 8, 2005

Please do angrily lecture more, klangklang, it's informative.
posted by swerdloff at 12:12 PM on July 8, 2005

While most people accept that as true, the problem is in balancing free markets with localized government and national sovereignty. Add to that the fact that the West has not, HAS NOT freed up their markets to respond to the reduced restriction in developing nations' markets, and that's the general argument against economic liberalism.

Klangklang

In light of this could you reply to my question above that begins:
"Can conditions for a homegrown African economy develop in the modern world where international markets drive demand and pricing? "

I'd like to read your take on it.
posted by BeerGrin at 12:15 PM on July 8, 2005

Stop paying me my salary. It just teaches me to depend on it and not develop my own means of producing food, transporting myself, and procuring a roof over my head.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:25 PM on July 8, 2005

Look at China; they've got "free trade" every which way you look nowadays. And it primarily consists of factories in which Chinese workers manufacture cheap goods for Western markets while receiving extremely low pay and working in extremely dangerous conditions. A small number of Chinese are getting rich off of this arrangement, but the vast majority of those who participate are getting screwed pretty hard.

1) There is no free trade in China. Government is interventionist, owns an undisclosed amount of stake in an unknown number of companies and the rules of the game are pretty much hidden.

2) I don't claim that their lives are excellent, but honestly I think the quality of life in China must have improved in the past 25 years. The chinese who are being screwed hard are the ones from rural China - those that are being screwed hard for the past 2000 years. If you are talking about industrial China, yes, the workers there earn dirt, but don't forget that dirt is worth a lot where they are from. Your developed economy point of view does no apply.
posted by falameufilho at 12:26 PM on July 8, 2005

He may sound a bit too provocative when he says "stop it all now" but he does have a point about the problems that need to be addressed in a long-term approach. It is a fact that dependency on aid distorts economies that are not yet fully developed. (Note the response to the comparison with the Marshall plan for Europe which of course was a completely different thing).
I remember hearing recently about the rate of tax evasion in Africa even in the better-off countries, and how this is one of the results of aid and in turn creates more dependency on aid. The point was that any democratic government need to rely on taxation, and if they have other sources of financing then of course corruption is going to be high and they're not going to care about tax evasion and not going to care about promoting more business and more employment to get tax revenues from and so the whole failing cycle gets perpetrated.

American grain companies want to give away grain because we have a surplus and it would actually cost them more to store the grain than it would to "donate" it to poor nations.

I saw a documentary on this a couple of years ago. They interviewed people involved in the donation process and at the receiving end. I'm not sure but it could be this one.
The BBC world service also has a radio programme on this called "The Aid Trap", you can listen to or download from the website.
posted by funambulist at 12:26 PM on July 8, 2005

Stop paying me my salary. It just teaches me to depend on it and not develop my own means of producing food, transporting myself, and procuring a roof over my head.

Do you really think that the comparison is valid or are you just being an idiot for idiocy's sake?
posted by falameufilho at 12:29 PM on July 8, 2005

Shikwati must have gone to the Ayn Rand School for Tots when he was a tyke. "Helping is futile".

Ack, that is so not the point of view here.
Also, this economist is not the first and only person to have made these points. By far. So why the vitriol?
posted by funambulist at 12:29 PM on July 8, 2005

Okay, snarky comments aside, I have to say the problem isn't aid as much as it is the boot on the neck of the people from their governments. The aid itself has not been used wisely. Instead of investment, there is graft and charity. Notwithstanding the other snarky comment about taxes being forced charity and gosh if we weren't taxed our innate generosity would take care of the poor (patent balderdash), I believe charity is a poor way to deliver aid, in that it connotes pity instead of help. Rather than decrying aid itself and telling the developed world to take it away, intellectuals in Africa ought to be proposing better ways to invest the aid that is being delivered. If the economists are right, capital is the first step in development. That monetary capital needs to be used to leverage the human capital. Now we can have a conversation.
posted by Mental Wimp at 12:32 PM on July 8, 2005

So why the vitriol?

Because our suspicion that this line of argument is often proferred by the self-serving is true.

Again, though, do read the article linked on the right which further fleshes out the argument.
posted by dreamsign at 12:35 PM on July 8, 2005

"You know what would help Africa? A dump truck full of condoms and some family planning."

The other day I heard this on the radio (I'm guessing it wasn't right-wing, by the looks of it) and my wife, from Jamaica (which suffers from similar economic and social problems), said "Hell yes." This is because she's one of the few women of her family to have escaped having the requisite 10 kids by 10 different men the time she's 22.

I admitted she had a point. Although when I pointed out that supposedly some Africans breed a lot because of high infant mortality rates, she called bullshit and pointed out how many people she knew that were given the pill but never took it. Especially her mother, whom she says would have another child practically every time she had sex, and when my wife pointed out this fact to her, it usually resulted in a whupping.

So there you go.
posted by fungible at 12:35 PM on July 8, 2005

funam., did you not notice that that poster put "i don't know wtf i'm talking about" at the bottom? or are you just stirring the shite?

i guess we can venture to hope the 8 comes up with a creative approach to aid--something radical and chancey like shikwati's urging, but without abandoning aid altogether.

although personally, i think total economic non-intervention sounds pretty good at this point.

*cricket...cricket*
posted by gorgor_balabala at 12:38 PM on July 8, 2005

As Shikwati points out, the governments are corrupt. These officials who siphon off the aid money... how is it that they're getting away with it?

It's because of something called Neo-Patrimonialism by some political scientists. Rulers siphon and channel foreign aid monies to their state and political power structures: friends, cronies, local leaders. The rulers are patrons. It's sort of a fusion of tribal and colonial-governments. Due to the enormous land mass and lack of infrastructure, it has historically been extremely difficult and often impossible to govern a territory as a state with definable and enforcable borders. Consequently, patronage networks naturally developed in this situation. Once the colonial institutions were created and power was ceded back to the native populations, the positions in these institutions were adopted into the patronage networks. Foreign aid is channeled through these routes in large part.

Before I go into too much detail, this book, Africa Works, covers these issues and argues that they are part of the normal operations for many African states, tho this sort if thing isn't limited to one continent.

The question is, can aid be properly administered in this situation without strengthening corrupt governments? Governments, I might add, which were often strengthened and sponsored by the U.S. or Soviet Union as part of their Cold War strategy. It gets far more complicated than this obviously, and angry, sarcastic polemics are not exactly productive to illuminating such issues.
posted by tweak at 12:41 PM on July 8, 2005

Dreamsign: well I've heard this kind of criticism of aid dependency made far more often by the anti-globalisation left-wing, which is at the other end of the spectrum from Ayn Rand market-uber-alles types.

It's true the way Shikwati is putting it sounds too simplistic but his being provocative (in responding to provocative questions) doesn't mean the problems he's highlighting aren't real.

Thanks for the reminder to read the other article, am doing it now. It goes a bit deeper indeed.
posted by funambulist at 12:45 PM on July 8, 2005

funam., did you not notice that that poster put "i don't know wtf i'm talking about" at the bottom? or are you just stirring the shite?

gregor: no, and no. Sorry! Will pay more attention next time. Will pay more attention next time. Will pay more attention next time. Ok?
posted by funambulist at 12:47 PM on July 8, 2005

Fungible: the best family planning is money. People who earn more money are more inclined to have less kids because their social lifestyle does not support it. In Brazil is very visible, when you have parts of the country where women have 7 kids in average (northeast) and where women have 2 kids in average (south - southeast). And we are not talking about two different planets like the US and Africa. This is inside the same country, with the same language and a reasonably similar cultural background.
posted by falameufilho at 12:58 PM on July 8, 2005

Third-world refers to non-aligned countries, from when the West was the First World, and Soviet Countries were the Second World. Underdeveloped, developing or less-developed nations are more apt, though those are still controversial.

No, third world nations are nations which are analogous to the "third estate" in revolutionary France. First world nations are nations which are much nicer then third world nations, and there are no second-world nations. Lots of third-world nations were aligned with the superpowers during the cold war.
posted by delmoi at 1:03 PM on July 8, 2005

falameufilho

Is that cause or effect? In other words, do families with more money have fewer children or do families with fewer children make more money? Both are plausible, but I think the former more likely. If you don't have many children sucking up your resources, you can invest in better education, nicer interview clothes, better dental work, etc., all of which could lead to higher income. Don't jump to conclusions, it is a sign of, well, not idiocy exactly, but at least intellectual impatience.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:06 PM on July 8, 2005

That's very interesting fungible. Did your wife say why her mother and others were resistant to taking the birth control? Were the pills handed out and provided by Westerners? Did that have anything to do with it? (I remembering reading that part of the reason why AIDS spread so quickly in some parts of Africa was because the people did not believe that it truly existed. They thought it was a lie fabricated by Westerners. I don't know how true that is though). The distrust of Westerners is rampant and very well-founded, which is just another reason why we cannot simply dump off money, food, and supplies and expect people to prosper. There is a real lack of programs that actually teach people how to cultivate the resources they need rather than just shoving them a limited supply and getting pissed when they don't procure more.
posted by crapulent at 1:07 PM on July 8, 2005

Also, nations which are neither first or third world are called "developing" nations.
posted by delmoi at 1:09 PM on July 8, 2005

Actually delmoi, I remember discussions in the 80's referring to the First, Second and Third world nations. Definitions here. That terminology is no longer popular, and has been replaced by the developed /developing distinction instead.
posted by darsh at 2:09 PM on July 8, 2005

The distrust of Westerners is rampant and very well-founded

Not so well founded they DON'T take trillions in aid from the west?

There are deep cultural problems... massive levels of ignorance.

To illustrate:

My wife's family spent a number of years as working as missionaries in Mali and in central Africa. Tyler, her cousin, was assigned work in one village to help with water projects etc. One day he noticed that the farmers were drying grain and beans literally on the ground - in the dirt - next to the huts. Not only was much of the food being eaten by rodents, domestic animals and insects but it was getting contaminated with animal and human waste spreading all sorts of diseases and parasites. Even tarps would help. But even THAT would be way to expensive. So Tyler rigged a type of roof top system on the huts with readily available material to get the food 0ff the ground PLUS it dried faster with better air circulation. The entire set up took maybe an hour and half per hut. All the farmers agreed it worked better. Over the course of the three months he stayed there various common illnesses caused by contaminant simply vanished. And there was even surplus to sell.

A year later he cycled back through the same villages. They had gone right back to doing it the old way. And people were sick. One of the children, a three year old, of the family he had stayed with earlier had died from a parasitic infection from ingesting goat waste.

Heart broken by such avoidable tragedy, Tyler asked why they had gone back to keeping the food on the ground? They just shrugged and said that was the way they had always done it.

Africa is sad troubled place. There are no easy answers. But one thing is clear. Africans have to solve their own problems. And the only real guaranteed solution is massive population reduction and control.

But nobody wants to say this.
posted by tkchrist at 2:10 PM on July 8, 2005

i'd say eating goat waste is pretty effective population control.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 2:16 PM on July 8, 2005

Ethereal Bligh: "I really don't think that most African economies are developed enough such that entrepeneurship and free trade are sufficient.
The hell! Undveloped economies are where entrepeneurship probably works the best! I mean every single business everywhere was once a small company serving an underdeveloped market.

An argument for the poverty in Africa is that, at root, there simply isnot enough natural resources and, in relation to that, it's badlyoverpopulated. This would make it "rich" in potential human resourcesin the context of world trade, but the problem is that in many ways aneconomy has to be relatively quite developed in order to realize thispotential.
Africa is rich in resources. But either they don't have the capital and machinery to harvest them due to the variety of factors plaguing the contintent or the resources they do harvest are sold as raw materials and then bought back as finished products for a net loss.
posted by PenDevil at 2:21 PM on July 8, 2005

delmoi -- you need to do a better job of making stuff up.

I haven't been to Africa, but having grown up in Southeast Asia, I can say that I've seen a lot of entrepreneuralism and hard work in the most impoverished slums in the cities, and frequently I've seen it occurring side-by-side with (and not despite of) various NGO aid projects. It's nice to be able to send your kids to an NGO funded school, and have them vaccinated by UNICEF staff, so that you don't have to worry about them while you work in a sweatshop or run your pedicab around Manila.

However, the lack of property rights and the dominant market position of minority populations freeze out a large proportion of the population; and is the primary bottleneck towards distributing the benefits of aid.

Corrupt governments are only one aspect of it, and it's one that gets hammered on frequently by folks who've been sipping on the "regime change" Kool-Aid. The other aspect that needs to be distangled and unlocked is the fact that many nations have economic sectors that are dominated by particular minorities, and these minorities, whether they're the Chinese in Indonesia, Kikuyu and Indians in Kenya, or Ibo in Nigeria -- by dint of their position are able to benefit the most from the bulk of foreign investment and aid, and only allow a trickle to flow down to the rest of the population. Free trade, in and of itself, won't fix that, it will only excacerbate the problem, as we saw in Indonesia during the crisis, when Muslim rioters looted and torched Chinese shops; or in the current predicament in Iraq, where a formerly dominant Sunni minority is literally fighting to re-assert its superiority over the Shiite majority.

It's this volatile mix of ethnic tension and internal social inequality that is the true Gordian knot of international development, and neither extreme of "throwing money at the problem" or "screw 'em all and let the market sort it out" will cut it.
posted by bl1nk at 2:24 PM on July 8, 2005

disclaimer: I don't know wtf I'm talking about.

Thank you for this honesty. I'm particularly impressed because 90% of the commenters here should put such a disclaimer beneath their comments but would never dream of doing so. I especially relish the people who are sure they know more about African economies than an African economist. Vowels for Bosnia and snarks for Africa!

I think this guy makes a lot of sense, but I don't have enough facts to make a decision one way or the other. Fortunately, I don't have to. Unfortunately, governments do have to, and I fear they don't have all that many more facts than I do.
posted by languagehat at 2:29 PM on July 8, 2005

Africans have to solve their own problems. And the only real guaranteed solution is massive population reduction and control.

I agree with the first part of the that statement - these are indeed our problems, and we need to find solutions that fit our circumstances. But while population control is key, to say that's the only real solution is simplistic. What are we to do with the current population? What about investing in education? Or, as Tanzania is going, invest in basic disease prevention? Malaria is a terrible but preventable disease, the treatment for which is often prohibitively expensive for most people in Africa.
Handing out condoms and preaching population control is important, but it's not the most important factor here
posted by darsh at 2:31 PM on July 8, 2005

i'd say eating goat waste is pretty effective population control.

Obviously it's not. War isn't. AIDS isn't. Malaria isn't.

I'm afraid the any non-voluntary population control mechanism— natural or unnatural—would have to be very radical (and likely intolerable) to even make a dent.

So. Godzilla maybe?
posted by tkchrist at 2:44 PM on July 8, 2005

Let's see... huge government bureaucracies with misguided intentions, check. Begging childlike Africans, check. UN apparatchiks fattening themselves on perpetuating privation, holy fucking check. Unscrupulous politicians hoarding corn, African biochemists chauffering around Europeans on their market-destroying rounds, and of course, the scourge of ebay. I'd like an actual argument for halting or reforming aid, not this parade drill of straw men.

And you've got to wonder when someone says "No one can really picture an African as a businessman". I'll have to mention that to the next bunch of African businessmen that passes through town. I'm sure they'll understand.
posted by palinode at 2:54 PM on July 8, 2005

bl1nk: Extremely well-said.
posted by growli at 2:57 PM on July 8, 2005

UN apparatchiks fattening themselves on perpetuating privation, holy fucking check.

Check mate?

I would like to just mention that nobody has, ehm, mentioned the unclear impact of NGOs. Except bl1nk.
posted by tweak at 3:06 PM on July 8, 2005

Delmoi: Though the reference to the Third Estate was intentional, I stick by my definitions. Alfred Sauvy would too.

Beer: Yes, Africa can develop. What it has now is infrastructure set up under colonialism, which is directed at harvesting resources and transporting them out of the country. What it needs is an infrastructure releated to serving the needs of the population. The barriers to getting that (whether population, education or corruption) are fucking immense, but surmountable. Though I'm not a huge fan of the man, looking to Porfiro Diaz and his industrialization of Mexico would be instructive. He built on a modified Henry Ford plan, figuring that if Mexicans were paid well for making things in factories, they'd buy the things in those factories. Much better than Mao's Great Leap. (Alas and alack, Diaz was still an authoritarian douche). But what is needed for most sub-saharan countries is some targetted protectionism, some removal of stupid anti-investment regulation, some direct aid investment in infrastructure, some emphasis on export economies with regard to things like diamonds, an increase in educational aid... Well, y'know, a lot of things. A lot of little things, some big things, and some new wisdom from the IMF and World Bank (which are, at least with regard to rhetoric, reforming a lot of their former stances especially on Structural Adjustment Plans).

Languagehat: I'll admit it, I'll admit it, the classes that I've taken on developing nations have generally focused on Latin America, and the couple of papers that I've written on Africa have focused on Western Africa, which is really different than Sub-Saharan Africa. But the appeal to experts here, that because this guy is an economist and an African, is kinda flawed.
posted by klangklangston at 3:34 PM on July 8, 2005

metafilter: we don't know wtf we're talking about.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 3:39 PM on July 8, 2005

delmoi -- you need to do a better job of making stuff up.

Did you actualy read the wikipedia article you linked to:

Third World was a term originally used to distinguish nations that neither aligned with the West nor with the East during the Cold War, many were members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Today, however, the term is used to denote nations with the smallest UN Human Development Index (HDI) in the world, independent of their political status
...The term "third world" was coined by economist Alfred Sauvy in an article in the French magazine L'Observateur of August 14, 1952. It was a deliberate reference to the "Third Estate" of the French Revolution. Tiers monde means third world in French. The term gained widespread popularity during the Cold War when many poorer nations adopted the category to describe themselves as neither being aligned with NATO or the Warsaw Pact, but instead composing a non-aligned "third world" (in this context, the term "First World" was generally understood to mean the United States and its allies in the Cold War, which would have made the East bloc the "Second World" by default; however, the latter term was very seldom actually used).

In other words, I was right that "third world" was meant to be analogous to "The third estate" and that "the second world" isn't a term thats normaly used. Although those terms were used in the past to refer to their cold-war aliances, it is not how the terms are used today.
posted by delmoi at 3:54 PM on July 8, 2005

Delmoi: In the language of policy, "Third World" isn't used anymore either, despite Wikipedia's immense credibility. While there are still plenty of classes offered under the title of Third World Politics, on syllabus day the prof will take great pains to talk about how that terminology is outdated. (You'll also note that if you simply reverse the bolding in your quote, that you get the exact opposite message).
And no, the term is not used to denote countries with low HDIs. The term used for them is "developing" or "under-developed" or "less-developed." The UN has changed its terminology.

But this is all just a bit of a derail, ain't it?
posted by klangklangston at 4:12 PM on July 8, 2005

(And no, it's not synonymous with the Non-Aligned Pact nations either, of which India and Nicaragua were leaders).
posted by klangklangston at 4:13 PM on July 8, 2005

Re: the debate on 'Third World' vs 'Developing World' - I've started using the terms 'North' and 'South'. I know that those aren't perfect terms either but they are quite commonly used in my neck of the woods.
posted by madokachan at 4:16 PM on July 8, 2005

I must apologise to modernerd, seems his Ayn Rand reference at least for this guy was more appropriate than I had realised.
posted by funambulist at 5:14 PM on July 8, 2005

delmoi writes "It [meaning live 8, tony blair stuff] is not aid, it's debt relief. "

This isn't entirely true. Debt relief was more or less a fait accompli for 14 African countries going into the G8 summit; what Blair is pushing for at the summit is an increase in aid. He wants to see a $25 billion/year increase; about a doubling. He's calling for developed countries to contribute 0.08-0.1% of their GDPs to Africa, mostly in the form of out-and-out grants, plus some subsidized loans.

Shikwati makes good points, but his view is a little naively absolutist. The Economist actually had a great opinion piece about this very subject last week, and they came out, believe it or not, in favor of more aid. The online content is subscription only, but here's my favorite paragraph:

The aid sceptics—some of them veterans of the industry, their palms calloused from many previous bouts of hand-wringing over Africa—have all the best lines in the debate. Everything has been seen before, they say, nothing has worked. But what do they mean precisely? Do they mean that the World Health Organisation should abandon its efforts to put 3m HIV-carriers on anti-retroviral therapies? Perhaps those already on the drugs should hand them back, lest they succumb to “dependency”. Should Merck stop donating its drug, ivermectin, to potential victims of riverblindness? Let Togo reinvent the drug itself! Perhaps, in the name of self-reliance, Tanzania's government should stop giving pregnant women vouchers to buy mosquito nets. Get sewing, ladies!

The fact is, while aid can stifle the homegrown economies of African countries, it can also invigorate them. Even in the U.S., the interstate highway system wasn't built by private enterprise; such basic infrastructure projects are ideal points of focus for government aid. Health care assistance, too, can prove to be an unambiguous benefit. Burkina Faso, for example, has made significant economic gains as a result of the near elimination of riverblindness, due nearly entirely to aid from developed nations. Similar gains could be made from aid to help reduce malaria and AIDS.

So yeah, as with most things, it's dangerous to try to force the issue of aid to Africa into a simplistic black-and-white worldview.
posted by mr_roboto at 5:50 PM on July 8, 2005

"Undveloped economies are where entrepeneurship probably works the best!"

No.

"Africa is rich in resources."

No, it isn't compared to the Americas and Eurasia.

"I'm particularly impressed because 90% of the commenters here should put such a disclaimer beneath their comments but would never dream of doing so. I especially relish the people who are sure they know more about African economies than an African economist."

Presumably, this includes me. In your world, laypeople aren't entitled to an opinion on a technical matter...unless the layperson is you. Poll economists and see if Shikwati's view are orthodox or heterodox. Then, get back to me.

The economic problems of Africa is oft-studied, there are reams and reams of material on the subject. Trade and entrepreneurship are the magic bullets in the minds of only the most ideologically minded. Most economists today recognize that there must be a superstructure in place to support an industrializing economy and that African economies are lacking in this more than any other continent's economies (excepting Antarctica). Trade produces wealth only when there is comparative advantage, and with regard to the rest of the world's economies, African economies have little. Entrepreneurship at the most basic level (and many African economies are almost completely undeveloped) are things that the people there are already doing.

One book that I read organized the developing world by continent and distinguished each from the others in terms of root problems. Asia's core problem is simple overpopulation. Central and South America's core problems are corrupt governments and social organization which are the direct legacy of the colonialism. Africa's core problem is a lack of resources relative to population. Africa cannot even in a plausible hypothetical feed itself. In contrast, the Americas can easily feed themselves and Asia has difficulty in this regard only because they've become so efficient at it that population is extraordinalily high.

There's not a lot of good agricultural land available in Africa relative to the population, and many/most cultures there have inheritance traditions that subdivide land to heirs...which stopped working as the infant mortality and death rate declined. In west central Africa it was common that heirs would have plots of land so small that there was no efficient way to farm them and they were thus abandoned, the people moving to the cities. This has changed somewhat with the advent of AIDS; and while the cold-hearted may see the AIDS pandemic in Africa as a partial solution to Africa's population problems in the long run, the truth is that in the short run it has been calamitous. Having a sufficient agricultural capacity is only one of quite a few things that are the absolute minimum requirements for an economy to move from non-existant to industrial. Incidentally, or perhaps completely to the point, is that a number of African nations in the last twenty years have in a very real sense lacked anything resembling a national economy at all. Usually due to war and famine.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:57 PM on July 8, 2005

While there are still plenty of classes offered under the title of Third World Politics, on syllabus day the prof will take great pains to talk about how that terminology is outdated.

I'll just add that klangklangston is very accurate with this statement. At my school, the course is called North-South Relations, and throughout the semester the prof emphasizes the problems with terminology. 'Third World' is most certainly outdated, while 'less-developed' or 'North/South' are sort of less evil generalizations.
posted by swank6 at 12:20 AM on July 9, 2005

"Undveloped economies are where entrepeneurship probably works the best!"

No.

Brilliant argument. You win.

"Africa is rich in resources."

No, it isn't compared to the Americas and Eurasia.

It probably is just as rich. South Africa which is very developed compared to the rest of Africa is the worlds leading producer of platinum and one of the worlds leading producer of gold and diamonds. If the rest of Africa had our infrastructure they would be able to extract and sell just as much of their resources as us. Nigeria has oil (but the corruption there is unbelievable, if there was less I wonder how much more they could actually produce). Zimbabwe before the Mugabe led collapse was exporting tobacco and copper. Etc etc. There is plenty of stuff in the ground or in the rural farming areas. But with no investment and no trade it's too costly to harvest it. In SA we have a big problem of rural-migration. People abandon their farms/villages in the country to come to the city to look for work leaving the rural areas bare and putting even more strain on the government and social services in the city.
posted by PenDevil at 12:49 AM on July 9, 2005

To add to PenDevil's point, many nations in Africa have plenty of natural resources. The Congo has more minerals under the ground than I can name, but unfortunately Mobuto stripped the country bare before he died. Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana have gold, Sierra Leone has diamonds. Botswana has diamonds and nickel.
Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania grow superior coffee. Central African nations grow good cotton, and if only they could export it at competitive prices, those ecomonies would do well.
posted by darsh at 3:58 AM on July 9, 2005

many nations in Africa have plenty of natural resources. The Congo has more minerals under the ground than I can name

PEOPLE, do READ the article on the same page, linked to the right. I have no idea why this rant (if well-intentioned) was made an FPP and not the well-balanced, example-laden article on the same site. Raw material prices fluctuate too wildly to base the majority of any economy on (except, perhaps, oil).
posted by dreamsign at 10:47 AM on July 9, 2005

I don't know if anyone is still reading this, but Puffin mentioned KickStart upthread. Kickstart is a contestant/participant in Amazon.com's Nonprofit Innovation award, which challenges customers to donate to their favorite innovative charities. The organisation which collects the most gets a matching grant from Amazon.com
posted by darsh at 5:53 AM on August 5, 2005