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dream_labyrinthYesterday while I was working on a jigsaw puzzle, I kept trying to remember which song they used to make into a Christmas song in Love, actually.
I didn't remember, but in the process Do they know it's Christmas came to my mind. Which got me thinking about development aid. Pondering that subject a bit, I came up with the following rant.
The problem of development aid as it is done is that it is not based on a sound theory.
It goes something like this:
Enlightened Man* discovers that there is a Rest of the World. And that this Rest of the World does not profit from all the fancy things Enlightened Man has, like electricity, cars, diet Coke and McDonalds. Even worse, nowadays, is the realisation that the Rest of the World does have stuff like pollution and global warming, still without all the benefits Enlightened Man has.
So Enlightened Man decides that his Judeo-Christian ethics require helping the Rest of the World.
And Enlightened Man gives money to the countries of the Rest of the World, and sleeps easily at night, knowing he is Good, all is well, and the scar doesn't hurt anymore.
After a while, Enlightened Man gets tired of giving money away to others, and comes up with a bunch of very good things on which to spend the money himself. So he looks at the Rest of the World sharply and tells them to get a grip on themselves. Rest of the World, ungraciously, stares back and says "How?" Ungrateful buggers. So Enlightened Man takes his money and goes sulking, then after a while looks up and sees that Rest of the World is still there and in pretty much the same condition as before. Prompted by his ethics as above, Enlightened Man decides to give in and gives them money again, knowing that he is indeed very good.
Obviously this will never get any results. Because there is a fundamental flaw, which is the lack of specific aim.
Development aid should work somewhat like the following line of thought, which is of course purely theoretical, but I am in full political opposition mode and we all know that political oppositions don't need to have feasible ideas as long as they voice their criticism of the government actions with enough sarcasm or in simple enough words for the man on the street to understand.
So, let's assume I was Enlightened Man and had just noticed Rest of the World.
I want to do something about Rest of the World, because my Christian upbringing and history makes me feel uncomfortable at the thought that people are starving. I could starve myself out of sympathy, but that doesn't really have such a great effect on the world in general, let alone on my own comfort, so the next logical step would be to feed Rest of the World.
But wait, once I feed them, what happens then?
So I start thinking: What do I want for the Rest of the World?
I want them to not starve, okay. I also want them to not stand on my doorstep, because let's face it, this whole philantropy thing is much easier if the people in question are a bit further away. Thirdly, I know I won't want to pay for them for ever and ever. I chuck out my kids when they are adults to fight for themselves, I certainly will be doing the same with whole countries.
So I need to take a good look at Rest of the World and figure out what needs to be done so they
a) won't starve
b) stay where they are
and c) won't need my money anymore in the near future
Now, there are a number of things I can find when examining Rest of the World. Maybe there is an evil religious leader who tells them that everything I do is evil and that I need to be killed. Maybe there is a megalomaniac ruler who takes the money I intend to give to his people and uses it to build a great big bomb, or gild his toilet seats
So I look at my aims and realise that to reach them, I would first have to get rid of the evil religious leader or the megalomaniac ruler. Which would mean a war, or at least a raid, which is messy and also might costvotes lives - other than those of the evil religious leader / megaomaniac ruler, whose lives obviously don't matter.
So I evaluate my aims, and reconcile them with what I am willing to invest.
If at the end of this process I come to the conclusion that all I am willing to do is give them money and let them do whatever they want with it, I cannot blame anybody afterwards if what I end up with is an evil religious leader who has a spiffy TV station to blare at his starving population that it's all my fault. I cannot blame anybody but myself if I end up with a megalomanical ruler who aims his great big bomb at my living room while sitting on his gilded toilet seat cackling evilly.
If I claim surprise at the sudden appearance of megalomaniac ruler, it only shows that I didn't do my research well. Megalomaniac rulers (and evil religious leaders) don't usually appear out of the blue. A good pointer is when somebody offers to kill his neighbouring megalomaniac ruler to do you a favour. Rule of thumb: do not trust anybody who kills his neighbours if you pay him for it. Sooner or later somebody will pay him more.
* As this is an equal opportunities rant, I don't give a damn if Englightened Man is Enlightened Woman
I didn't remember, but in the process Do they know it's Christmas came to my mind. Which got me thinking about development aid. Pondering that subject a bit, I came up with the following rant.
The problem of development aid as it is done is that it is not based on a sound theory.
It goes something like this:
Enlightened Man* discovers that there is a Rest of the World. And that this Rest of the World does not profit from all the fancy things Enlightened Man has, like electricity, cars, diet Coke and McDonalds. Even worse, nowadays, is the realisation that the Rest of the World does have stuff like pollution and global warming, still without all the benefits Enlightened Man has.
So Enlightened Man decides that his Judeo-Christian ethics require helping the Rest of the World.
And Enlightened Man gives money to the countries of the Rest of the World, and sleeps easily at night, knowing he is Good, all is well, and the scar doesn't hurt anymore.
After a while, Enlightened Man gets tired of giving money away to others, and comes up with a bunch of very good things on which to spend the money himself. So he looks at the Rest of the World sharply and tells them to get a grip on themselves. Rest of the World, ungraciously, stares back and says "How?" Ungrateful buggers. So Enlightened Man takes his money and goes sulking, then after a while looks up and sees that Rest of the World is still there and in pretty much the same condition as before. Prompted by his ethics as above, Enlightened Man decides to give in and gives them money again, knowing that he is indeed very good.
Obviously this will never get any results. Because there is a fundamental flaw, which is the lack of specific aim.
Development aid should work somewhat like the following line of thought, which is of course purely theoretical, but I am in full political opposition mode and we all know that political oppositions don't need to have feasible ideas as long as they voice their criticism of the government actions with enough sarcasm or in simple enough words for the man on the street to understand.
So, let's assume I was Enlightened Man and had just noticed Rest of the World.
I want to do something about Rest of the World, because my Christian upbringing and history makes me feel uncomfortable at the thought that people are starving. I could starve myself out of sympathy, but that doesn't really have such a great effect on the world in general, let alone on my own comfort, so the next logical step would be to feed Rest of the World.
But wait, once I feed them, what happens then?
So I start thinking: What do I want for the Rest of the World?
I want them to not starve, okay. I also want them to not stand on my doorstep, because let's face it, this whole philantropy thing is much easier if the people in question are a bit further away. Thirdly, I know I won't want to pay for them for ever and ever. I chuck out my kids when they are adults to fight for themselves, I certainly will be doing the same with whole countries.
So I need to take a good look at Rest of the World and figure out what needs to be done so they
a) won't starve
b) stay where they are
and c) won't need my money anymore in the near future
Now, there are a number of things I can find when examining Rest of the World. Maybe there is an evil religious leader who tells them that everything I do is evil and that I need to be killed. Maybe there is a megalomaniac ruler who takes the money I intend to give to his people and uses it to build a great big bomb, or gild his toilet seats
So I look at my aims and realise that to reach them, I would first have to get rid of the evil religious leader or the megalomaniac ruler. Which would mean a war, or at least a raid, which is messy and also might cost
So I evaluate my aims, and reconcile them with what I am willing to invest.
If at the end of this process I come to the conclusion that all I am willing to do is give them money and let them do whatever they want with it, I cannot blame anybody afterwards if what I end up with is an evil religious leader who has a spiffy TV station to blare at his starving population that it's all my fault. I cannot blame anybody but myself if I end up with a megalomanical ruler who aims his great big bomb at my living room while sitting on his gilded toilet seat cackling evilly.
If I claim surprise at the sudden appearance of megalomaniac ruler, it only shows that I didn't do my research well. Megalomaniac rulers (and evil religious leaders) don't usually appear out of the blue. A good pointer is when somebody offers to kill his neighbouring megalomaniac ruler to do you a favour. Rule of thumb: do not trust anybody who kills his neighbours if you pay him for it. Sooner or later somebody will pay him more.
* As this is an equal opportunities rant, I don't give a damn if Englightened Man is Enlightened Woman
