Thursday, 25 May 2017

Development Aid_Reflection Memo

In my class reflection memo, I will try to summurize the whole lecture and discussion among lecturer and students focused on development aid. I will mention also the required readings which were indeed interesting and provided different views and perspectives on the whole issue. However, I will mainly provide my thoughts and insights concerning the issue of development aid. I will try to reflect the topic, readings and discussion which emerged during class and I will also provide my personal experience with organizations dealing with the topic of development aid and the media coverage of aid.
I think that development aid is one of the issues which indeed link Africa and Europe or North America. Majority of topics that we were reading about and then discussing during class were important and interesting but I think that conflicts in Africa are still something which is happenning far from us. We perceive Africa and its problems as something which is not our bussiness. I think that ordinary people simply do not see connections between conflicts, issues in particular African states and our developed Western world. Our countries are however related already for decades and centuries. Dambisa Moyo also showed this connection in her great book Dead Aid. When she described the history of aid and financial support from Western countries for African countries, she also pointed at the fact that after colonisation and decolonisation, direct links, connections and relations between rich and poor countries did not end. Aid was just another channel how to continue in influencing former colonies. This issue was also mentionned by lecturer during the class as one of the reasons why rich country provides aid to any underdeveloped country.
I think that understanding aid from this postcolonial or neocolonial perspective provide us interesting insights. We can understand the political motives and intentions of countries which are former colonial superpowers. Also during lecture, we were mentioning France and Britain which are classical examples. It was also mentionned that the whole issue with aid started after the World War II and thank to the Marshall plan, Truman doctrine and US position towards Europe and its colonial empire. I think that it is kind of paradox that while USA was creating interdependence and economic relations with Europe, Europe was creating its own ones with former colonies. I think that this was something like global shift in politics. Politicians invented new way how to influence and even misuse other countries without direct rule. Could we therefore see aid as just another political tool of domination? Is aid only a language game (as Japanese case demonstrates)? Is it just about politicians playing with words according to interests of their countries or even because of their own benefits?
However, how about Nordic countries and UN agencies? During the class, lecturer was talking also about these countries and their reasons for giving aid and engaging themselves intensively in UN agencies. Nordic countries provide aid because of their ethical and moral principles. This perspective was even unrealistic for me. How is it possible that there are countries which are giving aid for ethical reasons and countries which just label aid as ethical and provide it for pure economical and political reasons? Why Norway has not superpower approach as US or economic reasons as Japan or political strategy as United Kingdom? I think that this issue should be study more deeply because it could provide very important understandings and insights not only about development aid. I think that crucial difference is caused by society itself, I think that the decisive element is percepetion of ordinary people that I have already mentionned at the beginning of my memo. I see similarities between aid and for example issues as refugees or terrorism. Perceptions and mindsets of people from Nordic countries differ from the ones of Americans, French, Czechs or Slovaks. If we focus on Slovakia and examine its society more deeply, we see that there is a lot of fear and hatred towards all unknown things as foreigners. I also think that this society is not so strong as societies of Nordic states. I personally feel something like lack of sense of community in Slovak society which makes it weaker. I think that we should try to find answers by sociological approach and by studying particular societies to understand specific types of aid and interests leading to give aid.
However, we should then focus on another important question. How to change perception of people? How to make them see development aid in more positive way? I think that this is the essential element of development aid because if perception of people changes it could lead to pressure on politicians and changes in politics concerning development aid. My opinion is that people have power to change things and make politicians to promote their values just like in Nordic countries.
I have some personal experiences with development aid. For several months, I was an intern in Platforma mimovládnych rozvojových organizácií (Slovak NGDO Platform). We were mainly dealing with lack of knowledge and interest of Slovak society concerning development aid, humanitarian aid, conflicts in foreign countries, etc. Before I started working in PMVRO, I was not able to exactly explain what is development aid. Now I am wondering how is it possible that me as student of international relations and european studies could not understand the concept of development aid. I think that it is problem of Slovak society. These issues are simply not covered by media in proper way. There is no real discussion or awareness about Slovak official development aid. I had impression that majority of people do not at all know that Slovakia is giving small percentage of its budget on projects abroad. Is it failure of agency that is responsible for official Slovak aid?
During my internship, we were organizing an event which was supposed to raise awareness and knowledge of Slovaks about aid. It was called Development Day. There were many workshops, stands of NGOs, speeches of different interesting people, games and attractive programme for children, etc. We indeed tried to do it as much as attractive and educative for all categories of people and all ages as we could. We even invited some refugees to come and share their stories. At the end of the event, there was even concert of popular Slovak singer. However, I was surprised that participation of people was indeed low. There is significant lack of interest in our society and I understand that ordinary people have their ordinary problems but I would like to ask why they are so ignorant, sceptical and cynical. Why they do not see connections and links between our problems which have often roots in different countries? Why they do not understand that because of globalization our world is interdependent?
I was also dealing with myths about development aid spread among people. Usually when people know something about development aid it is a myth. They think that aid is not working, people are poor because they are lazy, poverty is caused by overpopulation, liberal economy is the only solution for poor countries, etc. It is difficult for a journalist to write about aid for Slovak audience. However, I think that it is the only way how to deal with lack of interest and misunderstanding. We need to talk and read about development aid. I see many obvious inefficiencies and shortcomings of development aid and I really like book by Dambisa Moyo which I have read and which was recommended to me by a friend working in NGDO. I understand criticism of one of my colleagues towards this book but I think that author, Dambisa Moyo wanted to provide different perspective on aid. Her criticism was rather unusual at that time but I think very helpful for many people dealing with development aid.
However, I think that Nordic case provides us very interesting insights and understanding that we should have towards development aid. We know cases such as Mozambique which demonstrates that aid is not only „dead“ but could be really effective and successful. However, is it possible to change perception in former colonial superpowers? And how to deal with public opinion in targeted countries? How could these people see Western aid, if they often witness only corruption and scandals? Is it nowdays possible to change this situation? What if this type of aid is strongly embedded in capitalist neoliberal globalised world?

During class, we were dealing with different definitions, understandings, approaches and reasons for development aid. I had impression that also my colleagues have rather negative and critical views on aid. I think that I have both, negative as well as positive. I maybe try to be somehow optimistic because of cases that aid could work and be effective. I indeed appreciate sceptical and critical opinions which I think are really important in the whole process of reframing aid. Book by Dambisa Moyo is excellent example. I still tend to hope that despite its history and roots development aid could be effective and working. 

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