The Red Cross scandal, reconstruction/development and NGOs

PBS Newshour did a segment on an NPR/Pro Publica investigation into the American Red Cross' activities following the Haiti earthquake of 2011. According to the report, the Red Cross only built six homes in the country despite raising over $500,000,000. The Red Cross cited Haitian government red tape but the journalists pointed out that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with far fewer resources built far more houses.

A couple of personal observations about NGOs based on my experience. Bear in mind, these are general, not absolute.

-Immediate disaster relief is significantly different than medium- and long-term development or reconstruction. The former is pretty straight forward, the latter far less so.

-In medium- and long-term development or reconstruction, smaller is usually better; it's probably not an accident that smaller NGOs did a lot more in Haiti. National, rather than international, NGOs are more likely to be staffed by natives who actually know how to navigate their country's bureaucracy, speak its languages, relate to its people, culture and needs, etc. Because of this, they have more of a stake in the success of the programs and are more likely to be effective. This may make it harder for well-meaning foreigners to identify such NGOs and requires a bit more knowledge and research.

Careless development worsened impact of Hurricane Sandy

While the false dichotomy narrative pretends that environmental concern and development are antithetical, a public radio report reminds us otherwise. WNYC ran a good report exploring how overdevelopment and careless, thoughtless development significantly exacerbated the impact on New Jersey of Hurricane Sandy.

Are anti-AIDS programs based on a false premise?

"When I give food to the poor, I'm called a saint. When I ask why they are poor, I'm called a communist." -Archbishop Dom Helder Camara. This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

The public radio show This American life has a fascinating story on how counterintuitive behavior sometimes save lives and how many AIDS prevention programs in Africa are based on flawed conventional wisdom.

(Click here to access theshow... see Act One)

Aid to Africa wiped out by war

This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel, Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

I hate to succomb to Afro-pessimism. And I hate even more to write something that risks perpetuating crude western stereotypes about the continent. But at the same time, I can't read the news and be disingenuous about my reaction.

Pessimism in general is not in my nature. And having lived in West Africa, I know that the place has some of the most in innovative and resilient people in the world. I love the continent and its people and that's why events piss me off so much. I can't simply shrug my shoulders and say, "Ah, that's just the way people are there" because I know it's not true. At least not of the vast majority.

I am convinced that if the continent's post-colonial leaders had been just mediocre, if its leaders had simply stayed out of the way, then Africa would be in far better shape than it is now. Instead, it's been cursed with morons, megalomaniacs, gangsters, psychopaths and, at the best, mere crooks.

In recent weeks, I've read stories like this...

-Sudanese strongman Gen. Omar al-Bashir is preparing for a return to war in the south of the country. Perhaps the general is trying to prove his grim multitasking abilities by conducting a war and a genocide simultaneously;

-Renewed conflict in Somalia, primarily Mogadishu, has caused the homelessness of some one million people;

-The head of the DR Congo's army insists that a return to all-out war is the only solution to the crisis in the east of the country;

-There are rumbles that Ethiopia and Eritrea may start another installment of the 'world's stupidest war';

-The Nigerian parliament is trying to reverse the handover of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. The handover was agreed by former president Olesegun Obasanjo after the International Court of Justice ruled that the land belonged to Cameroon;

-As usual, Zimbabwe's collapsing dictatorship is whipping up hysteria, this time by accusing Britain of preparing to invade the country. This wouldn't be a surprise. After all, the UK already stands accused by the regime of manipulating the weather.

All this comes in the wake of a report showing how armed conflict has cost Africa nearly $300 billion during the period 1990-2005.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) Oxfam says the cost of conflict was equal to the amount of money received in aid during the same period.

Being on the board of an NGO, I follow development issues pretty closely and receive a lot of news from and about the NGO world. I always read about this or that charity damning the western world for not giving enough in development aid. They use words like 'shame' and 'disgrace' and 'pitiful.'

Incidentally, African leaders tend to be more focused on securing fairer trade deals that getting more western handouts.

I understand the tactic. NGOs are trying to appeal to liberal western guilt to get more money.

But the biggest problem isn't western 'stinginess' but a small minority of armed African thugs who hold the majority hostage.

There are many reasons aid hasn't improved things in Africa. Africans like to point to things like neo-colonialism, like foreign exploitation of natural resources, like unfair trade deals. And all of these are legitimate complaints.

But one of the biggest can't be addressed by blaming others.

Aid isn't contributing to African economies. It's merely replacing the money that's being lost because of insane wars. So the continent is staying stagnant in absolute terms and regressing in relative terms.

Africa's so-called intelligentsia likes blaming everything on Europe and the United States. And these parties hardly have clean hands on the continent. After all, where do the arms for all these armed conflicts come from?

However, the result is that anyone who ever was an anti-colonial freedom fighter (Zimbabwe's Mugabe, Ethiopia's Meles, Eritrea's Isaias) seems to get a free pass... no matter how gravely they've betrayed the ideas of their own 'liberation' struggles... no matter how much they've destroyed their own countries or their neighbor's.

The US government spent 'only' 0.14 percent of GNP (in 2003) on international development assistance. Bear in mind that this 'mere' 0.14 percent translated to $15.7 billion, by far the biggest of any country... and that PRIVATE donations by Americans accounts for another $15 billion.

People aren't being killed in the Central African Republic because the US provided 'only' $30.7 billion in aid instead of, say, $35 billion or $50 billion. Europeans aren't killing Sudanese in Darfur. Americans aren't killing Congolese in Kivu. Canadians aren't starving people in Bulawayo or making them homeless in Harare.

Ending all armed conflict won't instantaneously eradicate all poverty in Africa. But if you want to get out of a hole, the first step is to stop digging.

Developmentalism as neo-colonialism?

New York University professor William Easterly has an interesting piece in Foreign Policy entitled The Ideology of Development. I've sparred with him in the past in FP's pages and take issue with some points he raises here but this essay is worth a read. Easterly offers a pungent critique of top-down of what he calls 'Developmentalism,' an ideology he claims is just as dangerous as fascism and communism.

He contends that a noble idea (the free market system) has been hijacked by bureaucrats of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. These institutions were created primarily to advance the interests of corporations in donor (western) countries. As such, they have typically advocated policies to achieve precisely this end. During the 1980s, the cure-all-prescription was for poorer countries to completely deregulate their economies and to open themselves up to unrestrained foreign pillaging.

I'm generally in favor of more openness in trade. But I believe in this to the extent that it helps raise the standard of living of people in countries that do so. Raising the standard of living broadly, not just for the narrow elite. Where more openness hurts the broader population, I see nothing wrong with regulations, social programs, etc. I do not believe in government intervention merely for its own sake. I do not believe in deregulation and free trade simply for their own sake either.

Easterly echoes a criticism I've often made myself. These international institutions try to shove down the throats of poorer countries one-size-fits-all policies, regardless of any other considerations. These policies are conceived in air-conditioned offices in London or New York and completely disregard local realities on the ground, realities that are key to the success or failure of any reform. This is why most structural adjustment programs (the formal name for when a country hands over management of its economy to foreign bureaucrats) have failed.

He points outs out that this top down imposition of policies is the antithesis of free markets. Furthermore, he argues that these ill-suited foreign prescriptions have had a counterproductive effect by giving open markets a bad name. This disillusionment is what opened the door to a populist demagogue like Hugo Chavez who has become a mythical figure precisely by attacking laissez-faire capitalism. Most of the countries in South America, the continent most harmed by structural adjustment policies, are run by at least moderately left-of-center governments.

Easterly fails to mention another situation that further alienates people in the non-western world: hypocrisy. Western countries preach the gospel of the free market. But it's only a one way street. Africa is regularly encouraged to follow the laissez-faire prescription by opening its economies to foreign exploitation, something which has obviously garnered the continent's people such wonderful results during the last 200 years. But western countries reject the same prescription by refusing to eliminate huge agricultural subsidies to their farmers, subsidies which make African agriculture uncompetitive in relation. Free trade implies a certain reciprocity that western countries presently aren't willing to concede.

Laissez-faire capitalism is a fantastic ideology in theory but ideology doesn't fill your stomach.

And it's worth noting that developmentalism is not the sole provenance of the right-wing. Many moderate left-of-center folks, such as Professor Jeffrey Sachs, embrace these theories. They view it as a sort of benevolent update of old theories. Laissez-faire with a human face, you might say. But there's nothing particularly humane about any ideology that ignores the wishes and desires of the humans that it affects!