Realities Distorted...?
We have all heard the criticism: America is too stingy, richer countries are dedicating smaller percentages of their GDP for development assistance, debt levels of poor countries are too high and need to be written off. The cacophony of condemnation is resounding and persistent.
Indeed, only Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Sweden expended above the universally committed threshold of 0.7% of GDP in 2003. Belgian dedicated just below the agreed threshold. Much shame is focused on the other leading economies in the world.
France and the United Kingdom only managed to meet half of the pledged levels in 2003, while Germany expended about 0.28% of GDP, Japan about 0.4% and the 'big, bad economic superpower' only managed a paltry 0.14% of GDP.
But is this the full story?
I suggest that it is not!
Rather than join the convenient, or rather knee-jerk, politically correct 'Geldorf bandwagon', which calls for debt write-offs, for more grants-in-aid, and for higher levels of funding for development assistance programs, I suggest that what is needed far more urgently is more competent utilization of resources by the recipient countries. Despite the shrill voices from the international civil society communities and from some shades of political activists, increasing the volume of financial assistance before recipient countries clean up their corrupt governance is literally throwing good money after bad. Chastising the richer countries for not granting carte blanche debt moratoriums is not necesarily going to help the people who need the assistance most.
Besides, there are also many who are abjectly poor, unemployed or under-employed even within the richer countries themselves.
If we revisit donor expenditures for 2003, we note that, together, the Scandanavian countries spent aapproximately $12bn in 2003 alone. France and the United Kingdom spent $7.3bn and $6.2bn respectively, while Germany dedicated $6.7bn, while Japan spent $8.9bn and the United States $15.8bn. Together, according to the OECD (quoted in Der Spiegel) the top 22 donor nations expended in excess of $66bn in 2003 alone. Such development assistance programs have been taking place each year since before most of us were even born. I'll let you do the math.
Surely then, a discussion that focuses merely on percentages rather than on actual volumes and, more importantly, on impact assessment, does not do justice to the cause.
I wish to suggest that the emphasis should be on (a) vigorously calling on the governments of donor countries to more fully account, to their own populations, on how they expend their tax payers' money in so-called overseas development projects, and (b) unrelentlessly insisting on recipient country governments to be duly transparent and accountable for the development of their people's lives.
Maybe then, your tax moneys will be put to more effective use in the interests of the poorest communities in this world, rather than (a) lining the pockets of recipient-country elites and (b) padding the rhetoric of donor-country political platforms.
In the poets words
"... neutral is no option
if not for them
you're against
lend to them your weight
before its too late
if you squint them out of sight
you side
with those of might
frail lives
further deprive ..."
[extract from "See", reprinted from "The Storyteller" (ISBN 3-8330-1055-X)]
Indeed, only Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Sweden expended above the universally committed threshold of 0.7% of GDP in 2003. Belgian dedicated just below the agreed threshold. Much shame is focused on the other leading economies in the world.
France and the United Kingdom only managed to meet half of the pledged levels in 2003, while Germany expended about 0.28% of GDP, Japan about 0.4% and the 'big, bad economic superpower' only managed a paltry 0.14% of GDP.
But is this the full story?
I suggest that it is not!
Rather than join the convenient, or rather knee-jerk, politically correct 'Geldorf bandwagon', which calls for debt write-offs, for more grants-in-aid, and for higher levels of funding for development assistance programs, I suggest that what is needed far more urgently is more competent utilization of resources by the recipient countries. Despite the shrill voices from the international civil society communities and from some shades of political activists, increasing the volume of financial assistance before recipient countries clean up their corrupt governance is literally throwing good money after bad. Chastising the richer countries for not granting carte blanche debt moratoriums is not necesarily going to help the people who need the assistance most.
Besides, there are also many who are abjectly poor, unemployed or under-employed even within the richer countries themselves.
If we revisit donor expenditures for 2003, we note that, together, the Scandanavian countries spent aapproximately $12bn in 2003 alone. France and the United Kingdom spent $7.3bn and $6.2bn respectively, while Germany dedicated $6.7bn, while Japan spent $8.9bn and the United States $15.8bn. Together, according to the OECD (quoted in Der Spiegel) the top 22 donor nations expended in excess of $66bn in 2003 alone. Such development assistance programs have been taking place each year since before most of us were even born. I'll let you do the math.
Surely then, a discussion that focuses merely on percentages rather than on actual volumes and, more importantly, on impact assessment, does not do justice to the cause.
I wish to suggest that the emphasis should be on (a) vigorously calling on the governments of donor countries to more fully account, to their own populations, on how they expend their tax payers' money in so-called overseas development projects, and (b) unrelentlessly insisting on recipient country governments to be duly transparent and accountable for the development of their people's lives.
Maybe then, your tax moneys will be put to more effective use in the interests of the poorest communities in this world, rather than (a) lining the pockets of recipient-country elites and (b) padding the rhetoric of donor-country political platforms.
In the poets words
"... neutral is no option
if not for them
you're against
lend to them your weight
before its too late
if you squint them out of sight
you side
with those of might
frail lives
further deprive ..."
[extract from "See", reprinted from "The Storyteller" (ISBN 3-8330-1055-X)]
posted by wisdomworld at 6:18 PM
3 Comments:
very well said - thank you for these pretty clear words!
The article would be more balanced if you showed the strings attached to that aid. Have a look at my blog, http://letsliveitup.blogspot.com/, which has a piece that shows the third world repaying the richer nations $13 for every $1 they have been given. That is not aid. I agree that the recipients of aid need to use the aid more efficiently, but if they are told they need to buy manufactured goods, and in most cases arms, then I suggest there is something wrong with the interpretation of aid.
Yes, interesting observations. I would suggest, however, that the so-called Third World countries have had it too easy in the western press (and in government controlled African media). The real problem is not that Aid is "tied". It is more that the recipient countries do not "bother" (and I use this word with its heaviest implications) to do their homework before entering into negotiations. They enter negotiations cap-in-hand, unprepared, and incompetently deployed human resources, rather than with the confidence of their leverage (individual and collective) and with more strategically deployed personnel.
I will cite just one, of many, many, examples of such self-defeating complacency on the part of recipient nations. Every country has a delegation at the United Nations in expensive New York city. These delegations range in size from about 5 to over 12 delegates, permanently stationed in New York City and augmented by additional specialist delegates from time to time. Almost every Foreign Minister or Head of State/Government tries to attend the General Assembly each year, at vast cost to their financially weak economies. Yet, what business is conducted in New York? Global security issues dominate in one guise or another. [Conflict is a ripe subjet for a discussion on its own].
And what about Geneva. This is where the "substance" of policy is negotiated and determined in matters of labour standards, trade tariffs, human rights, health interventions, childrens righst and requirements, tourism, disaster relief, intellectual property rights, sports administration and on and on and on. Yet, the majority of 'Third World' countries do not even bother to have a resident mission in Geneva. They do not particpate or contribute to the discussion in any way and therefore end up inheriting and being bound by policies which are distorted in that their views have not been factored into the equation. We can blame the richer countries for this, and therby provide incompetent leaders with a convenient excuse for their distorted priorities, or we can call to account those who should act more credibly in their own countries' interests.
A similar argument can be made in reference to World Bank/IMF negotiations. But maybe this should be for a subsequent discussion..:-).
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