mzalen-do
25th April 2006, 06:53
There are a few things as beguiling as a disillusioned former development expert, who has discarded jet travel, stopped advising "natives" on how to turn their lives around, and is in a combat mode denouncing all that he considered sacred in his previous professional incarnation.
William Easterly, who once was an economic expert on Africa in a premier bilateral development institution, fits the bill to a tee. Easterly is now a professor of economics at New York University. Not too long ago, he authored a book on why development aid does not work. The way he sees it, aid, as presently conceived, delivered and received, cannot and will never work. He is busy writing another book, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, a mouthful of a damning title that summarises Easterly’s current penchant for telling it as he sees it with the benefit of the experience of his years as a "development" guru.
Easterly spent years in the development business travelling to and out of struggling places that experts believe need tweaking here and there and a kick in the rear sometimes, to get them moving in the desired direction.
After years dispensing economic nostrums, naturally, he did not see any improvements in the patients he attended to.
In the end, he quit and retreated to a relatively monastic life in academia from where he has been issuing relentless assessments. Easterly is preaching with the passion of a recent convert.
In a recent Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post, Easterly reiteratively declared that most development advice frequently doled out by well meaning persons with genuine concern for the poor is useless. Even if all of the pledged aid billions were to go to Africa, they will not accomplish much, because, he observes, the focus is entirely wrongheaded. "…the obsessive and almost exclusive Western focus on [tragedies in Africa] is less relevant to the vast majority of Africans – the hundreds of millions not fleeing from homicidal minors, not HIV-positive, not starving to death, and not helpless wards waiting for actors and rock stars to rescue them."
He forgot to add his major peeve, the international aid agencies. Not entirely. Easterly directed his disdain at them for allegedly ignoring what could truly make a difference in Africa. He cites a successful private school of medicine in Ghana that has not accessed any development funds because of some "sacrosanct" rule in the development business. He is not too happy with some African government either. He lambasts the Kenya government for stymieing runner Robert Keter’s voice over Internet telecommunication venture, which was abruptly shut down by the authorities. Easterly answer to all the bedeviling development bottlenecks? He writes:" Development everywhere is homegrown," pointing out that as "G-8 ministers and rock stars fussed about a few billion dollars here and there for African governments, the citizens of India and China, where foreign aid is a microscopic share of income, were busy increasing their incomes by $715 billion in 2005." And to think that China is a communist dictatorship with no freedom of the press, the internet, or civil society organisations!
Easterly reserves special indignation for development agencies, rock stars and film stars that oversell the significance of aid to Africa. Perhaps he ought to have included the dependency mentality that afflicts much of the poor world. Take the case of Kenya. These past two weeks the Kenyan media has rightly informed its readers that some donors had shut their taps once again. The tone of the reporting (there was hardly any analysis of the action’s impact on the local economy) suggested something momentous had taken place and Kenyans should brace themselves for tough times. Easterly totally disagrees with this premise. In his view, the less Africa focuses on foreign aid the better off it is likely to become. Some unexpected examples buttress his point. Zimbabwe does not receive traditional foreign aid following its falling out with donors. A just completed study concluded that Zimbabwe has managed, without outside assistance, to reduce HIV infection rates by over 50 per cent in a relatively short period. Cases like this inspire Easterly.
"Dare one hope that in 2006, it will finally be understood that Africa’s true saviors are people of Africa, and that those who help them in task must be accountable to them?" Easterly asks. Fat chance.
William Easterly, who once was an economic expert on Africa in a premier bilateral development institution, fits the bill to a tee. Easterly is now a professor of economics at New York University. Not too long ago, he authored a book on why development aid does not work. The way he sees it, aid, as presently conceived, delivered and received, cannot and will never work. He is busy writing another book, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, a mouthful of a damning title that summarises Easterly’s current penchant for telling it as he sees it with the benefit of the experience of his years as a "development" guru.
Easterly spent years in the development business travelling to and out of struggling places that experts believe need tweaking here and there and a kick in the rear sometimes, to get them moving in the desired direction.
After years dispensing economic nostrums, naturally, he did not see any improvements in the patients he attended to.
In the end, he quit and retreated to a relatively monastic life in academia from where he has been issuing relentless assessments. Easterly is preaching with the passion of a recent convert.
In a recent Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post, Easterly reiteratively declared that most development advice frequently doled out by well meaning persons with genuine concern for the poor is useless. Even if all of the pledged aid billions were to go to Africa, they will not accomplish much, because, he observes, the focus is entirely wrongheaded. "…the obsessive and almost exclusive Western focus on [tragedies in Africa] is less relevant to the vast majority of Africans – the hundreds of millions not fleeing from homicidal minors, not HIV-positive, not starving to death, and not helpless wards waiting for actors and rock stars to rescue them."
He forgot to add his major peeve, the international aid agencies. Not entirely. Easterly directed his disdain at them for allegedly ignoring what could truly make a difference in Africa. He cites a successful private school of medicine in Ghana that has not accessed any development funds because of some "sacrosanct" rule in the development business. He is not too happy with some African government either. He lambasts the Kenya government for stymieing runner Robert Keter’s voice over Internet telecommunication venture, which was abruptly shut down by the authorities. Easterly answer to all the bedeviling development bottlenecks? He writes:" Development everywhere is homegrown," pointing out that as "G-8 ministers and rock stars fussed about a few billion dollars here and there for African governments, the citizens of India and China, where foreign aid is a microscopic share of income, were busy increasing their incomes by $715 billion in 2005." And to think that China is a communist dictatorship with no freedom of the press, the internet, or civil society organisations!
Easterly reserves special indignation for development agencies, rock stars and film stars that oversell the significance of aid to Africa. Perhaps he ought to have included the dependency mentality that afflicts much of the poor world. Take the case of Kenya. These past two weeks the Kenyan media has rightly informed its readers that some donors had shut their taps once again. The tone of the reporting (there was hardly any analysis of the action’s impact on the local economy) suggested something momentous had taken place and Kenyans should brace themselves for tough times. Easterly totally disagrees with this premise. In his view, the less Africa focuses on foreign aid the better off it is likely to become. Some unexpected examples buttress his point. Zimbabwe does not receive traditional foreign aid following its falling out with donors. A just completed study concluded that Zimbabwe has managed, without outside assistance, to reduce HIV infection rates by over 50 per cent in a relatively short period. Cases like this inspire Easterly.
"Dare one hope that in 2006, it will finally be understood that Africa’s true saviors are people of Africa, and that those who help them in task must be accountable to them?" Easterly asks. Fat chance.