Development Aid and its Limitations
Pogge[1] states that the aggregate shortfall from the World Bank’s $2/day poverty line of all those 40 percent of human beings who now live below this line amounts to only 0.7 percent of the global product or less than 1 percent of the combined GNIs of the high-income countries. My first critique was to say: “It sounds easy but what about the implementation?” But then I realized that there was more to it. Lots of money is given to the developing world but the result is not satisfactory. What happens with all the money and why is it not helping? I believe that the money goes either to the wrong recipients or wrong group of people or the money (at least a large part of it) goes back to the donor countries. Some aid is given for political reasons. This results in failing to achieve the aims of the aids.
Africa is constantly in the news regarding the misuse of the aid. The leaders or dictators use the aid money to buy weapons from the rich countries. A current BBC investigation[2] found out that millions of dollars in Western aid for victims of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 was siphoned off by rebels to buy weapons. In 2008[3], Switzerland gave 180 millions CHF to the developing countries as a development aid and during the same time, exactly these countries bought war material for 115 million CHF in Switzerland. This way, the recipient countries remain poor but the few leaders become rich and the arms industry in richer countries flourishes. US is the top supplier of weapons[4] in the world (also to the developing countries) followed by Russia, Germany, France and United Kingdom.
Sub-Saharan Africa has received an estimated $114 billion in bilateral and multilateral aid from 1995-2002[5]. And yet the result is meager because the money is not used as intended. Moreover, this happens not only in Africa. In Bulgaria[6], for example, 6.1 million Euros are supposed to have been used to finance the election campaigns of the politicians instead of investing the money in the promotion of agriculture. Similar cases of embezzlement by the ministers of Romania have been reported.
International organizations like UNICEF and the Red Cross receive a lot of donations so that they can organize and help the needy people in different areas. Unfortunately, even in these organizations, we have cases of embezzlement. In 2007/2008[7], there was such a case in UNICEF Germany after which the chief resigned. A similar case happened in 1999[8] regarding the Red Cross in Germany. Last year, there was a case of a UN official[9] misappropriating nearly half a million in aid money destined for Afghanistan. One can find several examples like these in which a small group of people take advantage of their position at the expense of poor and needy people.
China still gets development aid from many countries for example from Germany. In 2007[10], €67.5 million were given and for 2009 €27.5 million were planned. There were a lot of critics regarding the aid. It seems that Germany does not dare to destabilize the good relationships between the two countries. It is said that China is not going to get development aid any more but Germany is going to pay for „technische Zusammenarbeit“ (technical co-operation). For example €30 million were given for the promotion of solar projects in the last past years.[11] There are many other countries which are certainly needier than China.
Even private donations sometimes do not reach their recipients directly. In 1999[12] Bill Gates and his wife gave $5bn to the William H Gates foundation which has its goal to improve life of people by reducing world health problems. At the same time, the foundation announced the award of a $50m grant to a Seattle-based team aiming to develop a new vaccine for malaria and $50m to Columbia University for a program to reduce maternal mortality in developing countries. Presuming that a vaccine is invented, we cannot be sure that the developing world is going to profit from it because they will no be able to afford it. According to Pogge[13] the current market structure excludes the poor from the pharmaceutical innovation.
It appears therefore, that the problem is not the lack of money, but the misappropriation of a large part of it. This brings up the question whether giving development aid is the right way to fight the poverty as the poor obtain only a tiny part of it, if at all. Right now the donor countries are raising the percentage of aid every year and the poor countries are still asking for more. I believe the time has come to take a step back and think about other approaches. The total dependency must be broken and the developing countries must learn to take care of themselves. The aid as help definitely must be monitored more closely to ensure its proper use. Bilateral rather than multilateral channels could be favored so that the aid is given for a certain task and sanctions should be enforced in case of misappropriation or not meeting the goal as per agreement.
[1] http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=990
[2] http://www.diretube.com/bbc-world-news/ethiopia-famine-aid-money-was-siphoned-off-by-tplf-to-buy-weapons-video_afee649ff.html
http://www.abugidainfo.com/?p=13789
[3] http://www.gsoa.ch/gsoa/zeitung/139/waffenexporte-und-entwicklungshilfe/
[4] http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/ruestungsexporte104.html
[5] http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0809/p09s01-coop.html
[6] http://www.weltwoche.ch/ausgaben/2009-37/artikel-2009-37-entwicklungshilfe-missbrauch-auf-hoechster-stufe.html?tx_comments_pi1%5Bpage%5D=4&cHash=e15d40130b
[7] http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/kinderhilfswerk-was-ist-los-bei-unicef-609845.html
[8] http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,56035,00.html
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/10/AR2009061003827.html
[10] http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article5031250/Gruene-und-Linke-kritisieren-Niebels-China-Plaene.html
[11] http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/565/492918/text/
[12] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/360770.stm
[13] Pogge „World Poverty and Human Rights“ (pp. 222 – 261)
© 2010, Karma Tamang. All rights reserved.