Aid as colonialism
Althought the point has been made before, Foreign Policy has some searing words for the aid industry in a piece called The New Colonialists (subscription required). Money quote:
Many aid organizations will say that their ultimate goal is to ensure their services are no longer needed. But aid organizations and humanitarian groups need dysfunction to maintain their relevance. Indeed, their institutional survival depends on it...it is difficult to find examples where these groups have pulled up stakes because the needs they seek to address are no more.
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It's actually pretty easy to think of examples of aid groups pulling out once not needed, where shall we start; South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand. Many have started pulling out of China and South America etc. The sad truth is that often they stay around because they are still needed and a major problem with aid both government and NGO based is the erratic nature of it which leads to volatility stresses for recipient countries. It would be better if they did stay around in a more consistent and ongoing manner until sustainable solutions are in place.
Posted by: Rocco Weglarz | Aug 28, 2008 6:02:57 PM
Rocco, thanks for commenting. I agree that the authors oversell their point. Yet that doesn't really detract from the overall argument that many aid organizations face a bit of an incentive problem, coupled with limited accountability. The authors also point out that "the salaries [the aid organizations] offer are not only better and the work more effective, but there are often no comparable opportunities for well-educated locals in their country's civil service or private sector." This can make it difficult to get sustainable solutions in place.
Posted by: Ryan Hahn | Aug 29, 2008 9:59:27 AM
fyi You can read the whole thing for free here:
http://www.kubatana.net/html/archive/fund/080801fp.asp
(At least until someone decides to ask a Zimbabwean human rights organization to remove the article from its site ...)
Posted by: Mike | Aug 29, 2008 10:48:45 AM
Easterly's take on the issue:
http://blogs.nyu.edu/fas/dri/aidwatch/2009/09/how_the_british_invented_devel.html
Posted by: Rocco Weglarz | Sep 19, 2009 8:04:48 AM