One of the most inefficient and frequently counterproductive aspects of American foreign aid is our tendency to give aid to ourselves — experts call it “tied aid” — rather than directly giving it to those poor folks and communities overseas we are trying to assist.
Obviously, we don’t say that’s what we’re doing.
We don’t say we are dumping extra (taxpayer-subsidized) or substandard food on poor countries; We say our farmers are generously donating food to the poor overseas.
We don’t say grants to American health organizations working overseas are often just siphoning off funds and contributing to the health worker shortage in poor countries; We say our doctors and nurses are caring for the sick of the developing world.
And we don’t say U.S. businesses are exploiting weak nations for cheap labor, to remove resources and capture market turf; We say our entrepreneurs are there giving guidance and building new infrastructure to help emerging economies.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, has long been criticized in development circles for this tendency we have to give foreign aid to ourselves. Lately, under Rajiv Shah, the agency appears to have been making a serious effort to reduce this bad habit — untying aid — by allowing USAID to directly fund local organizations in the countries we are trying to help.
The US agency for international development, USAid, will no longer have to “buy American”, thanks to a policy change that will open up the agency’s contracts to firms in developing countries and could herald a significant shift in how the world’s largest aid donor does business.
Congress is looking at reforming its agricultural subsidies programs known generally as the Farm Bill — a massive, kitchen-sink piece of legislation that covers all sorts of things like food stamps, soil conservation and about $5 billion in direct payments to American farmers.
Given our nation’s cost crunch, many are predicting some big cuts. Humanitarian groups like Oxfam and the ONE Campaign are trying to raise public awareness to save the US government’s life-saving, overseas food aid program from the budget ax.
ONE’s food aid advocacy initiative is called Thrive. They also have this page explaining their position on these issues. Oxfam calls its food aid initiative Grow and here’s their argument for sustaining overseas food aid. Both organizations are largely advocating for the same thing — continuing to provide the world’s hungry with immediate food aid and also working toward lasting solutions to end these chronic cycles of hunger and starvation.
Oxfam, always creative and often edgy in their approach, today released this weird, creepy but somehow compelling video calling on Congress to stop playing with food aid (… the soundtrack reminds me of The Shining):
There is a looming food crisis in the Sahel, a geographic ‘belt’ that stretches across central Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.
After the hand-wringing and finger-pointing following the famine in East Africa last year, you would think the international community would already be mobilizing to prevent a similar tragedy from unfolding again right before our eyes.
More than 13 million people are at risk of hunger in the Sahel, with more than 10 million now considered food-insecure. More than 1 million children are at risk of severe malnutrition.
Aid organizations are trying to call attention to a little-noticed but massive plague spreading across Africa that is destroying communities, throwing many deeper into poverty and perhaps causing the deaths of many thousands.
Not AIDS or malaria.
It’s an outbreak of property seizures and community displacements known as the land grab. The forced displacement of 70,000 people in Ethiopia is the latest example of this phenomenon. Human Rights Watch reports that this is being done illegally, and for the benefit of large-scale commercial agriculture.
Last fall, Oxfam International did much the same thing in Uganda, drawing media attention to an ongoing reforestation project operated there by a British firm that the advocacy organization said had prompted the brutal and illegal displacement of 20,000 peasant farmers.
Now, due in part to Oxfam’s criticism and the resulting loss of World Bank support for the development project, the London-based New Forests Company has decided — after displacing the 20,000 farmers and employing some 500 other Ugandans as foresters — to close up the operation and leave.
This is a serious problem. But Oxfam knows you get tired of big, serious problems. So here’s a funny (and somewhat pointed) video on the African land grab from Oxfam, which is one of the leading humanitarian organizations trying to draw attention to this disturbing trend:
For a more serious and focused video report showing Oxfam’s critique of the reforestation project in Uganda, go to this link.
Another organization working to help smallholder farmers and poor communities hold on to their land is Seattle-based Landesa. I’ve written before about Landesa, which tends to take a more low-profile and diplomatic tack to solving this problem.
Landesa has done an excellent overview here describing what’s driving this land rush in poor countries and how we can work to both protect the poor without discouraging commercial investment.
The first step, as always, is to recognize we have a problem. Here’s hoping this issue rises up on the media radar screen. It’s big and it’s not getting the attention it deserves.
Busan is the second largest city in South Korea and one of the world’s biggest port cities.
If you knew that, maybe you already know about the big “high-level” meeting there this week featuring folks like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and thousands of other top officials from around the world.
But you probably didn’t. I suspect many Americans likely haven’t even heard of Busan, or much about the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness conference going on there through tomorrow.
This may stem from the fact that many, if not most, Americans fail to understand why civilized, developed nations do foreign aid and overseas development — let alone why top world leaders, activists and others would attend such a wonky sounding meeting in some far-flung Asian city.
My job is to help you understand. It can be difficult, I agree, in part because the language of foreign aid and development is, frankly, awful. Deadly. Dull. Yes it is. But what we’re talking about here is not. This is often about life and death, peace versus war, hope versus despair. How we get a better world.
So I’ve been following the discussions at this meeting, remotely, and largely via The Guardian’s excellent coverage. As Sec. Clinton said in Busan, we do foreign aid and development because it is in our national interest to do so:
“Countries with growing economies are less likely to send refugees streaming across their borders or traffic in arms, drugs or people.”
That’s the standard U.S. political sound-bite anyway: Foreign aid makes us safer.
True enough, but isn’t this a sad state of affairs — that this is the case American politicians think they have to make?
Given the push right now by some in Congress to cut foreign aid (which is only about 1 percent of the budget), it often seems like our leaders shy away from saying this is about helping the world’s poorest. Why is that such a tough case for our government to make? It’s not a tough case for British conservatives or most European leaders to make. I wonder ….
This is the moral imperative angle, which I would say actually has a lot of support in the greater Seattle area where a substantial humanitarian aid and development community is big and getting bigger.
At the Busan meeting, Oxfam is among a number of organizations trying to shame governments and donors to keep their promises on foreign aid. Here’s a great video Oxfam made to make its case for how best to improve foreign aid:
But there are other non-shaming arguments to be made as well in favor of aid and development, such as the economic one. Here’s one such, initially confusing, case that was made by Tony Blair, writing in the Washington Post, on how improving foreign aid can help put an end to foreign aid:
Fifty years ago, the scene in Busan, South Korea, would have been a familiar image of international aid: sacks of grain stacked precariously on a crumbling dockside. The backdrop would have been a country emerging from war and dependent on outside assistance to meet the most basic needs. But when national and development leaders gather in Busan this week to discuss the future of aid, they will see a very different place: the fifth-busiest commercial port in the world, transporting advanced technologies around the globe. This, writ small, is the Korean miracle — the transformation of a country from aid-dependent to aid donor.
This isn’t rocket science. It should be obvious that it is in our economic interest to help other countries improve their lot. Yet, again, for some reason, even this remains a hard sell in the U.S. Continue reading →
Bill Gates, who according to Forbes is the fifth most powerful person in the world, today made his case for boosting foreign aid and development to the G20 meeting of the world’s richest countries, which is held in France this year
It’s a compelling case. Unfortunately, it may be Greek to the rest of the world’s powerful.
As The Guardian’s live G20 website indicates, the meltdown of Greece’s economy — and its potential adverse impact on the global economy — is going to suck the air out of any attempt to float any other issue at this posh meeting in Cannes.
To paraphrase: When the going gets tough for the rich, it’s tough luck for the poor.
So what did Gates say? A lot actually.
He proposed, and handed in, a specific Plan to Assist the World’s Poor, which included his support for the idea of imposing a small “Robin Hood tax” on the financial industry and other select transaction. He also wants to encourage private investments in what has typically been viewed as the purview of government or humanitarian organizations. Says Gates:
The private sector hasn’t always invested as much in development as it should because the market incentives haven’t always been clear, but there are ways to encourage involvement. In my report to the G-20, I’ll make half a dozen recommendations for mobilizing tens of billions of dollars annually from private sources. The African diaspora is sitting on $50 billion in savings that could fund development in their home countries if it were captured through diaspora bonds.
Here’s a video from the Gates Foundation in which Bill says what he’s trying to do:
As this story from Reuters notes, Gates is the first businessman ever to be invited to address the G20 meeting. Many humanitarian groups lauded Gates’ call for the richest countries to not neglect the poor and to remain true to past aid and development commitments.
In response to Gates’ participation at the G20, Oxfam‘s Luc Lampriere said:
Gates’ timely message is that there will be no lasting global economic recovery without tackling poverty. He brings much needed impetus and ambition to a Summit nearly paralyzed by Europe’s woes.
World Vision issued a release, praising Gates’ advocacy on behalf of the poor as well — but suggesting he tone down the ‘innovation’ pitch a bit and crack some heads on the chronic failure of the G20 to live up to its promises.
What we need most is for the G20 countries to spend the money they promised to spend. There is no doubt that innovation will improve our ability to meet global poverty reduction commitments, but innovative financing would make more sense if the G20 were already doing their part.
The ongoing trend of foreign investors purchasing massive tracts of land in poor countries isn’t getting much media attention in the U.S., but one case in Uganda may change that.
Oxfam International reported a few weeks ago that the Ugandan government, on behalf of a British company and with financial support from the World Bank, had forcibly removed some 22,000 people in rural communities from their farms in order to transform the land into a massive tree farm.
The project is intended to provide Uganda with carbon credits in the global fight against climate change.
Voice of America, the New York Times and mostly British media have reported on it. The Guardian, which reported on it earlier as well, issued this new video report today. I think Oxfam’s video makes pretty much the same points and it’s half as long.
The Guardian video does mention the death of a child that took place when the mother claims her hut was being burned down by officials. It’s not clear if the death was related to the displacement or not.
The British company, New Forests Company, says it had believed the displacements of the farming communities were legal and voluntary. The firms says it is “puzzled” by the discrepancy between Oxfam’s claims and the official story.
The World Bank has also said it will investigate the allegations. World Bank watchdog Bill Easterly, who I recently interviewed, has started an online clock to track how much time it will take the WB to go from launching its investigation to reaching a determination. (The displacements began two years ago.)
The Guardian also published today a call by the UN’s lead expert on food security, Olivier De Schutter, calling for international action and consensus on how to deal with this trend that is displacing many poor communities, especially in Africa. Here’s Oxfam’s report on “land grabs” in poor countries.
It isn’t that tree farming is, by itself, a bad idea or has to displace locals. Here’s a story about a reforestation project in Burkina Faso that’s being done by the locals — as opposed to foreign investors.
NOTE: A Seattle organization, Landesa (formerly the Rural Development Institute) has been working for decades on improving the land rights of poor people. Read this essay by Landesa’s Zoey Chenitz on how the global land rush has effected women especially.
Oh, and the founder of Landesa, former UW law prof Roy Prosterman, has been named by Global Washington as the recipient of its inaugural Global Hero Award. Here’s an earlier post about Prosterman and his organization. He receives the award officially Nov. 1.
I’ve always liked that phrase, about cutting off your nose to get back at your face. It’s both wonderfully absurd and so bloody descriptive of our tendency to act against our own interests.
Today, I want to defend aid and development workers against themselves.
To be clear, I am not really an expert on this stuff. I am a journalist and, I accept, a lower form of life with no special insights into … well, much of anything.
Worse, as someone of Scandinavian bent, I am predisposed to holding a relatively bleak view of humanity and distrusting those who smile too much and/or claim they’re primarily motivated to help others.
Yet my job is to write about these folks who aspire to reduce global poverty, prevent deaths from unacceptably stupid causes like dirty water or lack of basic preventive health measures like vaccination — and generally keep slogging along trying to make the world a better place for the poor, for all of us.
I have to admit I am, despite myself, constantly amazed, encouraged and even inspired by these people.
So what the heck is their problem?
Why do they keep flogging themselves, even celebrating those who criticize and ridicule them? Why are they so passionate and engaged about what’s wrong with what they do? Continue reading →
