(The Capuchin, Summer 1992, pp. 4-5)
Consider the following situations. International relief agencies in the Sudan convert their money into Sudanese pounds at the official bank rate of about 8 to the dollar. The black market rate is about 9 times that, and is probably a more accurate reflection of the real value of the currency, the official bank rate being set by the government at a level determined principally by political considerations. The effect of converting the money at the official rate is that the agencies are making the government a present of almost ninety per cent of the local purchasing power of their money while keeping only ten per cent for their work. Defending their positions, the agencies would reply that, as reputable bodies, they cannot become involved in the black market, which, in any event, would contribute towards undermining the Sudanese economy and defeating the purpose of their presence in the Sudan. But what does the Sudanese government use its money for, including that skimmed off from the false exchange rate imposed on the relief agencies? It uses it to perpetuate the war against southern Sudan, to pay for a military offensive which creates refugees and casualties, the very problems the agencies came to relieve in the first place. So the question needs to be asked: Is it aid?
The international human rights organization, Africa Watch, last year pointed out that a surplus of maize built up by the Sudanese government during years of good harvests in the late eighties was then sold, the money being used, as above, for a military offensive. In the years preceding and following the sale, there was a food shortage, and the Sudanese called insistently for food aid from the West. When it received the aid, it used it as a weapon against the south. Who does such “aid” help?
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, the persistent famines of the seventies and the eighties were the product of war and Marxist agricultural policies no less than the drought which people in the West were told about. But the UN and other agencies helped to pay for those agricultural policies which involved moving large numbers of people from the north of Ethiopia to the south. The unspoken political objective behind the move was to drain away from the north the population which provided support for the anti-government armies based in the north. Now that those armies have won the war anyway and form the new government of Ethiopia, people have begun to move back from the south to the north, creating another wave of migration and misery. Who was helped by this “aid”?
Zambia
Zambia has received aid from various agencies to combat AIDS. Part of this consists of large supplies of free condoms. It is not an uncommon sight to see small children playing with condoms, both used and unused, putting them to their mouths and blowing them up as balloons. In the case of these children that “aid” is more likely to give them AIDS than to help prevent it. Does such “aid” help?
Good intentions are not enough
As a missionary in Zambia I have learned that good intentions are not enough; it is necessary to examine practically and with open eyes the likely consequences of much of what is done in the name of development. One local woman comes to mind. An Irish woman volunteer started a cooperative with local women, making children’s clothes cheaply. The result was that some women earned a permanent income and the children’s parents’ financial burdens were eased. Then along came a Danish agency which sold second-hand clothes (by the kilogram!) at rock-bottom prices of about 80 pence per kilo. The women’s cooperative was unable to compete and went out of existence. The well-intentioned people of Denmark who collected, cleaned, packed and freighted those clothes to Zambia never, I am sure, suspected that the end result would be to make redundant some women who badly needed a job to survive.
Malawi
Malawi is often presented as a showcase of successful agricultural development, and so, indeed, it appears on the surface. But the real beneficiaries are the big agribusinesses who employ Malawians at a pittance while enjoying the benefits of foreign aid devoted to agriculture. One of those beneficiaries is the ninety-year-old president of the country; he owns 40% of the country’s businesses, while the maintenance of the eleven presidential palaces costs more than the budget for the ministry of health. Clearly he benefits, but who else does? In Malawi’s case, a good deal of aid money ends up as a subsidy for official corruption, lending force to the criticism that aid is money taken from poor people in rich countries and given to rich people in poor countries.
Ask any person involved in work in Africa, whether as a relief or development worker, as a missionary, Catholic or Protestant, and it is more than likely that they will be able to give you many more examples of similar situations known to them personally. In my own case, I could fill twenty pages like this one giving further examples and still have plenty left over. That leaves the question: Does aid ever work?
Someone recently asked me if I knew of any development project that worked. After thinking about it for a while I said I was able to think of one, though another has occurred to me since. The Irish lady who started the clothing cooperative also helped to start a rice-growing project in an area where rice was previously unknown. It has now become an established part of the regular pattern of agriculture in that area, and farmers have a cash crop as well as an additional source of food for their families. The cost of the project, apart from her salary and transport expenses, was probably less than £100 in all.
The other project was one in which a young Englishman, working with people rather than for them, helped to provide some materials and technical skills for digging water wells. After several years, he had a success rate of about 80%. In the same area, a high-tech, big-money governmental project funded from Europe had an 80% failure rate because it operated as if people didn’t matter and were best kept out of it.
Part of the ingredients of success seems to be a willingness to work with people as partners, helping to meet what they perceive to be their need, and doing so at their pace (in most cases, this is not less than 5 to 10 years), and going half way to meet them by learning their language and customs. Then “aid” might really be a help.