Why people think aid doesn't work

There are three main reasons behind the commonly-held (and demonstrably false) belief that aid is ineffective and wasteful.

The first, and most obvious, is that people want a reason not to give money abroad. Simply saying 'we don't want to give away our money' understandably sounds rather harsh (although it would be much more honest if these people just admitted as such). So people like to jump on any instance of corruption, ineffectiveness or simple mismanagement (admittedly all these three occur far more often than they should, as we will see) to excuse being stingy with aid.

The second reason is down to the media's distorting nature. The wonderful achievements that have been made are ignored and the failures are plastered over the front pages. Now I'm not saying that the media should be rosy about what has been achieved. Enough has not been achieved while there are still people going hungry and people dying of curable diseases. However, it would be helpful if, when new statistics are published that are positive, these were also given press coverage. For example, in its Millennium Development Goals report from last year, the UN announced that 12,000 fewer children are dying each day compared with 1990.

The biggest issue is the most difficult one to address: in many instances, aid is ineffective. This is mostly a result not of corrupt leaders in developing countries (although these do exist) but of incorrect allocations and uses by donors. The receiver countries have historically been chosen by donors not based on where need is greatest, but on where is deemed most beneficial to the donor country concerned - as if aid should be about individual self-interest rather than the collective good. Before 1990 this meant aid directed at dictatorships in Africa and Latin America who were seen as stalwarts against communism. More recently it has meant aid directed at countries that could be hotspots for terrorism - India and Pakistan for example - with the hope of winning over the 'hearts and minds' of the local people to the Western way. Always it has meant donating where there is deemed an economic or trade advantage.

Furthermore, aid has always been about foreign 'experts' teaching local people what to do based on what they have done elsewhere or theories they have studied. It very rarely involves a proper consultation with the genuine needs of the poor on a local level.

Aid has already achieved a lot for individuals and communities worldwide - and the statistics in the UN MDGs report from 2011 speak for themselves. It could achieve an awful lot more if it shed donor interests and priorities, adapted to local conditions and knowledge, and took on the simultaneous goals of local and global development.

A victory for justice

Today, for the first time since the Nuremberg trials, an international tribunal has been found guilty of war crimes.

The former president of Liberia Charles Taylor was convicted by a United Nations-backed tribunal in the Hague. For the people of Sierra Leone - against whom Taylor has been found guilty of aiding and abetting crimes such as murder, rape, sexual slavery and enforced amputation - this represents a victory for justice and a recognition from the international community that said crimes are unacceptable and will not go unpunished.

What it also shows is that guilt in such atrocities does not have an expiry date which is encouraging for those still seeking justice from other offenders such as Omar al-Bashir in Sudan.

This is not unproblematic: where does the capacity of the international stage to intervene end? Can it move to indict Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier in Haiti for example? Or Bashar al-Assad in Syria?

Let's hope this is only the beginning of a series of judgements against heads f state who up till now have considered themselves untenable. We need this to show the current and future despots that their tyranny will not be accepted and will not be without consequence.

Why economic growth should not be at the heart of our global development goals

In 2000 every member of the UN signed up to a set of millennium development goals (MDGs) due to be achieved by 2015. As the deadline approaches, the targets seem less and less attainable, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The inevitable question is: why have we not gone further in achieving the MDGs?

A variety of answers have been supplied, all of which have some validity. Some argue that the goals were too top-down, did not focus enough on economic development or were simply too ambitious. This debate is probably premature: the deadline is still three years away and until we have the full data it is impossible to say which goals were hardest to achieve, where and why.

However, with the announcement on 13 April that David Cameron is set to chair a UN committee establishing a new set of development goals for after 2015 and the upcoming Rio+ summit in June which is due to decide on a set of sustainable development goals critically evaluating the MDGs is now essential.

For Cameron, the focus is likely to be on arranging the goals around economic growth with an emphasis on private sector involvement. This is worrying.

It would be disingenuous to deny the positive effect economic development has had on the MDG outcomes in China; economic growth can be harnessed to achieve fantastic results. However, in and of itself it does not improve healthcare, provide education or reduce inequality. In many instances, it can exacerbate existing problems or create new ones in these areas - when economic growth is not harnessed for good by an effective government it can mean more for the rich and less for the poor. Case studies demonstrating this have been highlighted in a book called Dying for Growth co-edited by new leader of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim.

Cameron has used his positive move to commit to 0.7% of the UK’s GDP on aid as a stepping stone to enforce his outdated and potentially disastrous view about world development. Unless this focus on economic growth is clearly stipulated to mean only economic growth for all the next set of goals will be worse and not better than the MDGs.

Take a comparison of two countries for which data is available regarding achievement of the MDGs: India and Cuba. India has achieved remarkable economic growth in recent decades while Cuba’s has been more or less stagnant. And yet Cuba has already achieved three of its MDG targets, being on course to achieve most of the rest while India looks set to fail on almost all counts. What is the reason for this difference? The answer is political will.

While the private sector has its place in global development this should be on the sidelines, as a supplement and an indirect actor. The drive for profits will not help those who are so in need of real achievement in the field of development. What will help are governments who have the political desire to make the vast improvements required. Economic growth can only be a supporter of this; it cannot be the driving factor.

I will leave the last word to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon from the 2011 MDGs report: 'Achieving the [millenium development] goals will require equitable and inclusive economic growth - growth that reaches everyone and that will enable all people, especially the poor and marginalised, to benefit from economic opportunities.'


This article originally appeared in Voices of the 7 Billion

New leader of the World Bank: the surprising and the unsurprising

It is unsurprising that the new leader of the World Bank is from the USA; its leaders have been from the US since it was created after world war two. I lament the ‘US/European duopoly’ of the World Bank/IMF as much as the next person. These two organisations, as well as most UN institutions, are in vital need of some injection of diversity in perspective from the global south and east. 

What is surprising is that, in the case of Jim Yong Kim vs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for president of the World Bank, I am delighted that American Kim has won. It was Nigerian Okonjo-Iweala who represented the status quo in this case. Kim's background in global health rather than finance is incredibly refreshing, and I look forward to his input. This is particularly considering the announcement that David Cameron is to chair the UN committee on overseeing development goals (more of which later…)

Malvinas/Falklands: the only solution

I read an article in the Guardian recently which said that there are a growing number of young Argentinians are seeing the islands their nation calls the Malvinas as British. This is controversial in a country which has always laid  claim to these islands. Argentina fought and lost a war with Britain over what the latter call the Falklands in 1982. The debate over sovereignty of the islands has reignited within the last year with Argentina being accused of plotting a 'blockade' against the islands by pressuring Chile to end Port Stanley flights.

For many this spat between Britain and Argentina over the Malvinas/Falklands seems inevitable and one that will never go away. An Argentine president could never cease calling for Argentine control of the Malvinas because the issue is seen as a cornerstone of Argentine patriotism. Equally, a British government could never cede the Falklands because it fought so hard to keep them thirty years ago. This tension is inflamed by the recent discovery of oil off the coast of the islands.

This has got me thinking about what the solution has to be. For me, democracy is the only way to decide. It may be imperfect, the results will undoubtedly be contested, but it's the only means by which this issue can be resolved: a referendum of the people living on the islands. Do they wish their islands to be part of the Argentinian territory, part of the British territory, or self-ruled? If the results were inconclusive (a majority of 50% plus one would be required) then negotiations would be necessary with the UN as the platform for this.

Come quickly, it's an emergency!

On 2 November Syria agreed with the Arab League to a set of proposals which included the immediate cessation of the Syrian regime's violence against protesters which has been ongoing since March. The UN estimates that at least 3,500 people have been killed by forces acting on the order's of the country's president Bashar al-Assad.

Despite this, on Sunday and Monday the violence continued, with at least 11 people being killed yesterday including two children.

The Arab League's response? To call an emergency meeting... for Saturday.