These darn faraway countries saying one day "get out of my country" and the next "don't come into my country".....

is it any wonder western disaster-capitalists are confused. Maybe these NGOs should spend the money on their own messes, but then they might be held accountable....

too close to home.

"US Aid aways comes with strings attached."

Ha! That's putting it a bit lightly. You might as well say that credit company loans come with strings attached. It seems probable that the motivation to lend is similar in both cases.

Western military interventions into nondeveloped nations have always had the explicit purpose of maintaining these nations' economic dependence on the West, whether in a general way (making an example of a populist or socialist leader) or a specific one (undoing a land reform that was going to hurt United Fruit's land holdings). Yet when economic "aid" fosters dependence, we--including progressives--all assume that it is some sort of a mistake. But why would Western institutions which are *deeply* intertwined (the World Bank and the U.S. Gov't, for example) conduct military and economic strategies with conflicting intentions? Isn't it more reasonable to assume that securing dependence is the primary deliberate purpose of our foreign aid? Of course they know that fair trade cripples the ability of late starters to develop manufacturing industries, since these can't compete on the free global market with advanced, established manufacturers. Of course the West wants to keep these other countries in their current roles as suppliers of raw materials/cheap labor rather than seeing them develop into manufacturing competitors. It is naive to think otherwise. If a factory owner started offering loans to his employees on top of paying their wages, no one would assume he was actually trying to develop them into competitive owners of their own factories. But we look at the same situation on an international level and suddenly all buy into the myth of good intentions. I'm still in the process of learning about the lending practices of the WB/WTO/IMF, but the fact that they force free trade and don't allow protection of infant manufacturing industries is pretty damning evidence that they don't want to see real, sustainable development. The loans can even be low or no interest as long as the bundle of free trade policies was part of the deal, because these trade policies are sufficient to cripple development.

"Then something strange happened: Far less happened than all the experts had said would happen. The best estimate of the death toll is now 84,000."

Oh good, it was only 84,000. Perhaps with a bit more help it might not have been even that bad. Refusing our aircraft carriers cost many lives I'd think and there would have been none of the problems the author suggested.

Euarto Gullible July 12th, 2008 10:17 pm
nellemason July 12th, 2008 11:47 pm

Excellent posts. I don't have first hand experience like old gullible with the Peace Corp, but I certainly know that in helping SA farmers to build bridges in the rural areas we all knew we were there to help, not to interfere, but I did see a few instances of well meaning interference by medical teams. Habitat should be a model for everybody. But most folks like to keep these people dependent for their own purposes in my opinion..

There is no such thing as foreign aid. There is foreign opportunity for control, footprint, influence(Condo Rice said us much recently). The game is to always keep these economies dependant and dysfunctional. The more corrupt or weak the governnments, the better the foreign agents are able to "negotiate" with their prey so called governments. These 3rd world supervisors aka leader understand the racket and play along. Those who resist the system are assasinted, coopted marginalized, their population turned against them, opposition group funded to fight a proxy war etc, etc, etc.

That simplistic nsrrow "they don't care to develop their own countries" should be evaluated through the prism on imperial ambitions, opportunism adn back room motives. Why is the G8 meetings always closed from public view. No transcript, no transparency, nothing.

To better understand this deadly game check out John Perkins "confessions of an economic hit man" > It says all that needs to be said, period.

If these AID organisation did not exist, the western governments would have created them. They have proven very usefull from the time of the missionaries to Africa in the 1800 during the enslavement of a continent, to now in acting as proxies. Even the seemingly benign national geographic have been know to do more than geography and sight seeing in 3rd world far away countries. Did Colin Powel not exactly say that a few years ago when he refered to those AID agencies as US "force multipliers" for the military during the recent so called war with Iraq? The AID agencies objected to that characterization, however, for the observant that was a revelation of the obvious.

Finally, what is one to expect. All the so called AID or DONOR agencies are essentially fully financed by the same western gorvenment perpertualy salivating over other peoples resources.

pundit, i see your racism in your representation of "neeeegrows" as lazy and shiftless, without any representation of the hard work and taking care of each other black folks did after katrina. i, too, as there. i'll be sure to be on the lookout for more racialized, tired generalizations from you, even if no one else wants to comment on it.

as to the article, i think the most pertinent point is one we all know: throwing money at a problem is not necessarily a solution, though it does make the money throwers feel a whole lot better.

The problem is not confined to NGO's -- I have wondered just how many new "millionaire" power brokers the missing several billion dollars we "misplaced" in Iraq created.

By extension, it's often the old neocolonial conundrum -- you "need" people with bonafides, who are educated, hopefully speak a translatable language (or better yet speak English or French), have references, a stable address, phone service, access to big ticket items like trucks and construction equipment ... in other words, frequently you are directly interfacing with whatever "elite" already exists... and generally you have to do this without threatening their status -- so, project steering committees and boards become filled with cronies and relatives with a few religious representatives.

The cynical rule of "doing well by doing good" (i.e. skimming just a bit as your due, nepotism and the diversion of labor) is hardly confined to "other" countries. It shows up locally often enough.

Yes, poorly managed projects can be part of the problem by providing yet another source of hard currency to be diverted. The problems does not lie in the "charity" dispensed ... but in the administration.... unfortunately not all problems can be solved microloans and microprograms, and excessive administration can both hamper distribution as well as eat up funds in administrative costs. Waiting for swollen bellies and pencil-thin limbs is not the answer.

There are so many western (read White people) NGO's and aid agencies and relief workers around that it is indeed a big business. If you have the opportunity to meet them, listen to them, work with them as I have, almost every part of their existence has to do with raising money - giving - whatever they choose to call it, they're doing nothing more than selling other people's grief and misery. Go to an NGO's hiring page, if the have openings, all of them are about administration and fundraising, or managing funds. Almost none are real contact grassroots work. No, they leave that dirty work to the unpaid volunteers they recruit. It's a cynical world indeed.

Paul Theroux has a nice phrase for NGO do-gooders in the Third World: agents of virtue. Here's an excerpt from Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown:

The whites, teachers, diplomats, and agents of virtue I met at dinner parties had pretty much the same things on their minds as their counterparts had in the 1960s. They discussed relief projects and scholarships and agricultural schemes, refugee camps, emergency food programs, technical assistance. They were newcomers. They did not realize that for forty years people had been saying the same things, and the result after four decades was a lower standard of living, a higher rate of illiteracy, overpopulation, and much more disease.

Some more worthwhile passages from the same book.

US Aid aways comes with strings attached. Also, in countries like Burma where we have political differences, ie, they do not follow the leader, we exploit disasters and use it to get intelligent agents on the ground to make local contacts. The British are the masters and we have learned well. I can only advise these countries to turn away from any aid for the Imperialist Vultures. This is not to take away anything from those who volunteer and really want to help. Unfortunately, they can not distinguish those with good intentions from those that do not.

Also, Burma should have been very hard hit from that Tsunami in 2004 in the same area that was affected by the Cyclone. Burma said thye had few fatalities and the State Department did not seem concerned about it, just said that we had to take them at their word, how can we know. Contrast that with cyclone and we seemed to know everything and were so concerned.

Anyways, you know something will be going down in Burma on 8/8 which will be the day the Olympics started in Beijing and the 20 year anniversary of the 8888 uprising.

People around the world dislike the US for a reason. Unlike Americans with their head in the sand or covered by the flag, they know what our government does to other countries. We are to Democracy and Freedom what water is to fire. It's not the people who are at fault, it's those who mislead them.

Eurato Gullible, I understand and it's confusing. It does appear that the Peace Corps cannot be succesful unless it has its own rigid and restrictive rules. These indeed seem excessive, just IMO. Quoting your post: "They have a very strict policy regarding publishing any material while you're serving, and they closely monitor blogs and will administratively separate you if you publish anything critical of the host country."

I'm sure there is a good reason for this type of censorship.
I don't doubt that exposing shortcomings of countries in which Americans are helping is problematic. But bashing USA is a world passtime. Many abroad dislike USA. US contributions are often forgotten, just like US help. And my impression is that US help abroad is often not appreciated enough. While US is fair game for all critics, US citizens have to refrain from acknowledging the negatives along with the positives when helping abroad?!

Certainly there are things to critique .. it's just that it seems that on sites like this one US gets all critique, no praise. While "the poor" and everyone in a poor country can do no wrong. I'm exagerating, of course.

Like you say, the best kind of help teaches folks to not need help in the future.

Too bad we didn't have a Prime Directive. Too late for that now.

Hmmm . . . some interesting calls for censorship here: "Getting fucking Gwyn off this website", "Flush this comment, CD. Please."

It has been my experience in working with the public that people don't appreciate/value/take care of what they get for free. So how do we give people "a hand up instead of a hand out"?

I think Habitat for Humanity has the right idea in insisting that those who will receive the homes must make a significant commitment to helping build them.

Maybe the best thing we can do is to let the UN handle it. They've done the best job of any body wherever they're sent. Scrutiny by all other nations prevents exploitation by another nation, leaders and businessmen.

stilldreaming,

You know, in my experience most Peace Corps Volunteers go to developing countries with high ideals, and the ones who integrate come back with a much more complex view of the world. In the way of aid workers, Peace Corps Volunteers differ because some really learn the language and integrate deeply into the culture. They work their way into circles of trust, and so some get to see an ugly (as well a beautiful) side of developing countries that most foreigners will never know.
The function of Peace Corps is not to combat corruption in foreign governments, nor is it to serve as a whistleblower. A Volunteer doing such a thing would be a foreign relations nightmare for Peace Corps.
They have a very strict policy regarding publishing any material while you're serving, and they closely monitor blogs and will administratively separate you if you publish anything critical of the host country.
Now that I'm out, I could write a hit piece with critical supporting evidence about corruption in the country where I served. But you know what? It would make a tiny headline on the back page of nowhere. You can bet, however, the people in the country I served would read it and talk about it. It would likely prevent me from ever being able to go back and visit. It would strain relations between all the Volunteers currently serving there and jeopardize all their work. It would alienate me from the Peace Corps staff which I befriended. It would also make my friends who are host country nationals very angry. They would likely say, "Americans don't know anything about our country and all you tell them is the worst about us," and you know...they'd be right.
Considering the fact that we squander so many billions of dollars on wars of aggression, no bid government contracts, and corporate welfare, I guess I don't feel deeply concerned enough about this waste of our tax dollars to go on a crusade to educate the public at the expense of shooting myself in the foot.
I merely felt a desire to throw my two cents on the pile after reading this article. The author asks some very valid questions at the end, and should give pause to everybody who thinks that foreign aid and foreign intervention is the solution to everything. Intellectuals from Joseph Stiglitz to Ron Paul have made compelling cases that our good intentions often backfire on us and produce results the opposite of what we wanted.

Getting fucking Gwyn off this website. He is as much a spokeperson for power as Tony Snow was.

The article and some of the comments just prove that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I was in New Orleans when Katrina hit. Neeegrows were laying on the ground by the Superdome whining for the Feds to feed and house them. Bush, having read Euarto's stories, passed the word that slovenly Neeegrows should eat catfish and get on with their lives without govt handouts. The poor are victimized by their own shiflessness

Euarto Gullible: WOW ! This type of realistic look at facts needs to be on the front pages -- why is it not? Have you or others tried to publish papers and articles with supporting evidence?

quote to highlight:
"There was not a sense of gratitude or relief toward foreign aid, but a sense of shameless opportunism and entitlement. This results in entire communities looking toward foreign governments to solve their problems rather than going to their own government. It stifles democracy, because people do not hold their leaders accountable, but rather look to outside nations to fix their problems, and develop the mindset that they are powerless victims of their corrupt governments."

I think we idealize human beings and forget that human beings everywhere, and human beings of all races, rich or poor, we all have an opportunistic side. Why work when food and goodies come for free?

DogLeg, I posted an imageshack link in my Yahoo Profile. (I couldn't post the photo directly here). The next time you accuse somebody of being a liar and calling for their censorship, perhaps you should have a little more to go on than assumptions and a dislike of their message.

http://profiles.yahoo.com/scape_veloct

If you do a Google search on corruption and Peace Corps you will uncover many personal stories. Not all Volunteers come to my conclusion, but many do.

I firmly doubt the validity of "Euarto Gullible"'s interpretation of that person's experience in it's entirety.
EG provides not one shred of evidence to support what this entity claims. Only so called personal experience with absolutely no reference to where, what, when, why or how.
In fact, it reminds me of the failure of the Clinton administration, having been based on Reaganomics and racism, to advocate, and ultimately succeed, the concept so well described above. That is people on welfare, unemployment, etc. need to earn it. Never mind that this constructs yet another "Catch-22" environment in this country.
How is it, in the 21st century, that an entire population of some 300 million people with at least 150 million of that be totally in denial, or ignorant, of the concept "Catch-22?" And please, do not explain to me the failure of public education as the demon of intellectual curiosity. That in itself is another self-perpetuating lie of cheap politicians since Mr. Puppethead Reagan that is ensconced in policy code.
Geeee wizzz.
Where is this person's documentation that IT even participated in the Peace Corp?
Flush this comment, CD. Please.

"The fool is celebrating slavery, to say nothing of the poor."

The bigger fools here are those who would let Bush/McCain/Repugs in.

As a former Peace Corps Volunteer, I can say this article is right on. While I was working in a developing country, you should have seen how many NGO's had sprung up to prey on foreign aid, most of which ended up in the pockets of the NGO workers rather than being put into the communities. I had one colleague who was placed by Peace Corps in an NGO which was a complete front. The workers all drove nice cars, and they had a full time staff of grant writers which fabricated projects and cooked the books to obtain foreign aid. Despite being blacklisted by many countries, they always found innovative ways to find new funding. Virtually none of that money made it back into the community, except for a few efforts devoted to staged photo ops to present themselves as legitimate. Nearly all Peace Corps Volunteers in my country who worked their way into positions of trust received veiled or not-so-veiled offers to "take their piece of pie" of any grants that they secured for their organization. Even local governments acted as parasites, often demanding that the funding for any public project be directed financially through them. The money is deposited in their accounts, and...OH, lo and behold, they didn't have enough money to finish the project because "costs exceeded what was originally thought." They need more money. You'll find all sorts of half-completed projects in developing countries that are just rotting away unfinished. Half-built buildings, half-built roads. Everybody takes their "piece of pie" from the funding, and by the time it gets to the project, there isn't enough to complete it or to complete it right. That's good for them though, because it's an opportunity to hold out their hand for the next round of donations.

Most well-intentioned people in the US and Europe who have never lived in a developing country simply can't fathom the corruption on all levels of government, and the lack of oversight or accountability. When we send foreign aid to developing countries, it really is a hail mary pass unless we have known reliable people working on the ground and controlling the purse strings for the projects.

In poor countries, begging for money from international organizations replaces the function of the government. USAID, and European governments were doing more to repair the public school infrastructure in the country where I was working than the government itself. There was not a sense of gratitude or relief toward foreign aid, but a sense of shameless opportunism and entitlement. This results in entire communities looking toward foreign governments to solve their problems rather than going to their own government. It stifles democracy, because people do not hold their leaders accountable, but rather look to outside nations to fix their problems, and develop the mindset that they are powerless victims of their corrupt governments.

After living and working in a developing country for two years, I am a whole lot more jaded about foreign aid. In my opinion, the only foreign aid in poor countries that is effective is business development. Welfare only creates a culture of victimization and opportunistic corruption. Business investment gives people jobs, and improves their sense of self worth as they earn an honest living to support their families. Rarely do poor people take care of or maintain things given or donated to them, but if those same things are purchased with a modestly increased income, they possess real value.

It's a laughable state of confusion many people have. For example, all the private funding going into Barack's campaign , that's private funding for a very public end.
To say nothing of Democracy, you can't have capitalism without built in conflicts of interest. So, Government is generally run by private corporations, entitlement or charity is reserved for them alone.
Make a "poor" person "rich", give them what they need. Don't call it charity and similarly don't call it lavish or wasteful.
It's ironic that Obama's pathetic new commercials hail welfare-to-work as some kind of success story. The fool is celebrating slavery, to say nothing of the poor.

Private charity is a joke. More than almost *anything* else, the position of the undeveloped world betrays the fact that the world's governments serve the interests of ruling economic elites over those of working people. Most Americans--all those not in a position to ever be able to benefit financially from the poverty and squalor of the global South--would gladly front these countries the necessary capital for sustainable develop. What does a GM worker care if Thailand starts to produce a car that can compete with the Malibu? The only way it could affect him or her is positively: wages would go up overseas as other countries developed, and factories in the U.S. would stop getting closed as wages went up overseas. Needless to say, rising wages overseas are good for workers overseas as well.

To me it is almost self-evident that undeveloped countries could develop if they were forwarded the capital to do so. Certainly I don't give much attention to theories about how they cannot develop because of their poor climates, lazy populaces, and so on. These arguments are always silly, and sometimes border on (or become explicitly) racist. I also don't buy any arguments about corrupt third world governments: this is a simple matter solved by installing inspectors and auditors. If someone had a true interest in seeing their capital used toward effective development, they would see that it was--they would adopt a U.S.-style business model, and it would work. But businesses are only run with effectiveness because there is profit at stake. Helping the undeveloped world to develop is essentially an altruistic task no matter how you slice it. The necessary capital must be lended with a low or no interest rate, which no one wants to do. And the end goal is to create more competition for the (ownership elite of) the already developed countries.

What is needed is not simply foreign aid. This is charity. Charity never lifted anyone out of poverty, because that is not even its purpose--charity only guarantees the temporary continued existence of those without the means to guarantee their own continued existence. From a certain angle charity is actually a reinforcer of current economic power relationships, a way to remind the recipient just who is in charge of the economic situation.

What is needed is genuine cooperation between individuals across nations toward the common goal of making all peoples and all nations self-sufficient and in control of their own economic destiny. Call it solidarity. But it sure isn't charity, and it sure isn't going to be done by individual donations or (least of all) by aid that is administered by the economic elites who profit directly from the existence of a pool of cheap foreign labor with virtually no environmental restrictions. Until we take power over our own governments how can we hope to help others develop?

We don't want to spoil the poor people.

We aren't spoiled ourselves, are wee? (Damn this keyboard. I think I'll take a wander down to Fry's Electronics and buy me a new Toshiba A305D laptop, with the snazzy video camera right in the lid! I HATE four year old technology)

It's hard for me to imagine that privately raised money, distributed by private organizations is going to run a grave risk of "more harm than good." But if or when these NGOs somehow become contractors or grant-recipients of a government (like say OUR government), look out.