Governance and Development

Christian:
In one of our earlier blogs I referred to how little Overseas Development Aid actually makes it overseas, how much of it ends up in the hands of bureaucrats and consultants working for NGOs and governments, and how much of the aid ends up being devoted to causes that serve the political and economic interests of the first-world donors. 

In this blog, we ponder whether that aid is actually effective. We have already established that it is quite effective at maintaining an extensive NGO infrastructure and at providing infrastructure to support the exploitation of natural resources from the developing world.  So, what about the aid that actually makes it to local people overseas. 

First, let's consider that aid is not doled out where it might have the greatest impact.  Rather, aid is political.  One way to illustrate that point is to look at the change in recipient countries of USAID funds between 1994 and 2004:



With the exception of Israel, both the primary recipients and the top recipients changed fairly dramatically in just 10 years.  Similarly, where the aid is destined is equally indicative of a change in political priorities:


Note how much smaller a share of the pie is going to the Middle East and how much larger a share to South Asia but also Latin America and Africa. Canadian trends are similar:



Canadian Overseas Development Assistance to Africa and the Middle East has grown exponentially while aid to Asia has been virtually flat.  One the one hand, that shows that Canadian priorities are somewhat different from American ones.  On the other hand, though, these figures belie the fact that the bulk of our aid goes to places such as Afghanistan and even Iraq.  The result is a massive rift in the development community over recent years.  Most development agencies in the world, including but certainly not limited to the Canadian International Development Agency, would like to do "development" work strictly speaking rather than financing the reconstruction of war-torn or failed-state societies.  Canadian development aid - and that of most other democratic countries - has a schizophrenic existence: It purports to be about "development" but much of it is really for the purpose of achieving certain political and economic goals.  In that regard, the United States is the one country in the world that is blatantly honest about what it is doing with its international development assistance: For in the US, USAID is a branch of the Department of State, not a stand-alone agency the way it is in Canada (and, as a result, there is no "Secretary of International Development" at the cabinet table in Washington.  This is not to be misunderstood as somehow praising what the US does.  Rather, it is simply a matter of being honest with ourselves: Development is not an end in itself and thus ought not be judged as such.

Meghan:
I agree wholeheartedly that development "aid" has political and economic agendas with the intent to improve the economies of the West, rather than the conditions of people living in "developing" countries.  I think, for the most part, Canadians concerned with the poverty which exists in a significant portion of the world, and the disparity between rich and poor nations do not support traditional aid agencies. I, for one, am quite heartened by the growth of microloans, and the extent to which average Canadians are willing to participate in the "grassroots" models of development aid. While I believe these are not the only answer to poverty and disparity, I do think that microloans are an important way to fund local economies, create local solutions and involve participants with dignity in the process of development and funding initiatives.