Development Aid_Reflection Memo

As the title suggests, I would like to express my thoughts on the issue of celebrity involvement in development aid. We did briefly mention this in the Monday’s lesson, but I want to explore this phenomenon a tiny bit closer. I would like to explore a bit closer an opinion voiced by Ludmila in the class and share more ideas that I got based on the reading and discussion.
First of all: it is undeniable, that celebrities do often engage in third world countries and raise awareness about the issues of these countries among the people of the developed world. In Chapter 2: A Brief History of Aid (Dead Aid), which was one of the readings for the lesson, the author argues that celebrity engagement in development aid has somehow made it a joke nobody takes seriously anymore, since instead of a sophisticated debate there are concerts and shows. I would like to point out that development aid (according to the said book) did not work before celebrities noticed Africa, so it doesn’t feel completely fair to blame it on Bono and other celebrities, that it is not working now.
I would also like to elaborate further on what Ludmila mentioned. In short, Ludmila argued that we (“we” meaning people just slightly over twenty years old) were born into a highly skeptical world. She mentioned images of naked little African kids from the TV commercials. I would like to pile up on that and remind us what probably all Czech mothers say, when they feel like their child is being ungrateful: “What would the children in Africa give for this!” Leaving aside that the children in Africa probably wouldn’t want to wear an ugly Christmas sweater and that saying such a thing can probably be considered slightly racist, somehow there is this thing inside us, telling us that somewhere in Africa there are people who are less fortunate than us and it is important to help them somehow. I am very positive that I have gained this way of thinking mostly by seeing the poor African babies everywhere since I was a little girl, my mother’s constant “African children would love to eat the mushroom soup” and other things like that. I do however wonder: when did this start? Development aid is no new phenomenon, but somehow I feel like the general public’s need to help those less unfortunate in the Third World region is quite new. I do wonder if maybe the TV commercials, the posters, billboards and yes, the celebrity involvement has something to do with that.
After the lesson I did some additional research into the topic of celebrities and aid. I must admit, I was surprised by how much has been written (even on academic level) about it. I would like to share my main conclusions. Celebrities often use their name to create a brand, having a brand is useful, because whatever they put their brand on, people will buy. Some celebrities like to put their brand on a perfume or jewelry, others like to put it on a charity project to help to raise HIV/AIDS awareness in Third World countries. It is in a way very sad, that the general public doesn’t really care about issues such as clear water, until a celebrity comes along and funds a charity focusing on clear water access for everyone. The thing is, once a celebrity draws attention to a certain issue, for this example let’s say hunger in an African country, people want to help. There are campaigns where people can buy an item and a part of their payment will then go to charity. I never completely understood why should I buy a random product made in Italy, China, Taiwan, etc., in order to help Africa. Why not help Africa by buying an African product?

If the question is whether or not celebrity involvement into development (or any other kind of) aid is good or bad, I do not see a simple yes or no answer. It is clear that celebrity activity attracts attention. I also believe that this can pressure the authorities to come up with more effective ways to help developing countries. Personally, I would see one of the main upsides of celebrities in the field of development aid as the people who help raise awareness about issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty, and so on. I also believe that without celebrities and their involvement in these things, most people sadly wouldn’t know about the Third World reality. Of course that the image the celebrities offer is most likely not complete and it is in a way designed to mostly make the celebrity look good, but as long as they keep trying to actually help, I would not dare to condemn them.

Development Aid_Reading Memo

African continent has a long history in receiving external aid and assistance. This approach of international community is partially legacy of the colonialism and partially it is a result of chaotic and sudden decolonization that did not establish a stable political environment. Many Western states felt responsible for war torn countries that they left behind and therefore established a framework for constant financial donations and humanitarian aid. But nowadays are many experts and scholars analyzing to what extent actually foreign aid helped to develop African countries. More and more of them are starting to reconsider the impacts of material aid that is flowing to the African continent.

The two issues are being discussed in the relation to the foreign aid. Firstly, many critical voices are pointing out the fact that developing projects for African countries are completely out of touch with the local reality and actual needs of the people. Experts who draw development plans can struggle to gain real information in real time so at the end there is no sufficient solution to problems. Furthermore, foreign loans and aid programs in Africa are usually badly monitored and often stolen by corrupt bureaucrats. This just led to the point where money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty.

It is clear that instead of creating development, foreign aid created dependence. Countries cannot be developed through aid and credit – it has never worked in this way and never will be. Of course, intentions were not to make African continent dependent on foreign donators but it has eventually resulted in the situation where majority of African states failed to set its own pace and direction of development free of external interference. However, sustained growth is still missing and it became clear that foreign funds could help only to those countries which undertake political, economic and institution reform.

After looking into some cases, it can seem that the more aid is poured into some country, the lower standard of living we can observe. However, one cannot generalize and simplify it. There are different conditions and pretexts that are crucial in each case. Foreign aid should not be seen as a universal tool for solving all the social and political issues in Africa. Money and funding are only a small part in the more complex projects that should bring stability to the country. But what is more important, those projects should not be brought by foreign institutions/ banks and by people who do not know local conditions and real roots of the problems. Such an attitude just leads to a general ineffectiveness and vicious cycle of developments’ failures.

A mindset that is popular especially in the Western countries that aid, whatever its form, is a good thing. Idea that large donations can remedy poverty has dominated the theory of economic development but, unfortunately, the results are not as good as one would think. More than a quarter of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are poorer now than in 1960s. Huge aid flows appear to have done little to change the development trajectories of poor countries. The key to understanding and solving the problem of world poverty is to recognize not just that poverty is created and sustained by extractive institutions — but to appreciate why the situation arises in the first place. This I find as the biggest problem so far when it comes to international aid programs aimed at Africa.

The second issue that I would like to mention is the problem of aid distribution. Especially African countries that find themselves in turmoil and armed conflict are vulnerable to food shortages and humanitarian crises in general. But in those cases can we observe another problem: humanitarian organizations cannot be sure for 100 percent that the aid ends up in the right hands. An example of it is al-Shabab region in Somalia where many of NGOs already refused to provide any kind of humanitarian aid as it never reached those who needed it most.

This resulted in unintended consequences of humanitarian action such as contribution to war economy or legitimizing certain leaders in area. Nowadays we can also talk about “criminalization of aid” when innocent suffering civilians are punished for receiving aid and food supplies by local terrorist groups and militias. Another undesired consequence of humanitarian action is the way how it is possibly prolonging war and suffering. For instance, Red Cross was helping wounded soldiers that then could return to the fights and kill more civilians or the case of Rwandan refugee camps that served as a base for Rwandan Army and other actors to finish the genocide when they took control of camps and also gained enormous amount of aid money.

However, sometimes when the conflict is too violent and chaotic it is difficult to say who is at the end benefiting from the aid that is coming in. In some cases, humanitarian aid had to be stopped because humanitarian staff became a target for armed groups and was often threatened to be killed. This led to militarization of humanitarian action itself – many organizations had to hire private security companies in order to provide safe conditions for their workers and people in need. Nonetheless, it should be still stressed out an importance of neutrality when it comes to providing aid and food supplies and not taking sides in conflict. At the moment when NGOs’ humanitarian actions became political, it is doomed to be targeted by local militias and armed groups as it is seen as a weapon of war.     

Last thing I would like to address is the way how African states should approach the foreign aid. There is empirical evidence that no foreigners ever developed any country, only nationals can develop their own countries. In spite of popular image that Africa is very poor continent and is in constant turmoil, the truth is that African economy is not in such a bad shape. But pressure needs to come from citizens who do care enough about international development to force politicians to overcome the basic problems in the country. Make institutions more inclusive is about changing the politics of a society to empower the poor — the empowerment of those disenfranchised, excluded and often repressed by those monopolizing power. Aid can help but it needs to be used in such a way as to help civil society mobilize collectively, find a voice and get involved with decision-making.

Development aid_Reflection Memo

The lecture and debates about the aid development in Africa led to stress several interesting points and issues, from the question of the altruism in the aid programs to the efficiency of these policies.

• Indeed this first question that come more-or-less naturally while speaking about international development aid is probably the question of altruism and real goal and interests in financing this kind of help.

As stated during the lecture, by asking the question why should a state give money to another state, it is possible to understand that this kind of policy could have other roots and consequences than pure altruism and willing to help.

When you look at the origins of such policies, with the Marshall plan after the Second World War, this become even more obvious. Indeed, such policy was a way for the US in a destroyed and fragile Europe to avoid the fall of the European States in the communism. By helping and financing the European States, the US were trying to convince them to stay out of what was going to be the Eastern bloc, so basically communism, in accordance with the Truman doctrine. This first example shows perfectly that the use of international aid could be heavily motivated by political, economic or ideological interests. International development aid can then be seen as a strong diplomatic tool and even been used as a way to increase it soft power.

As it was presented during the lecture, the example of Japan is here totally relevant. Indeed, if Japan had to pay war reparations to the states it invaded during the Second World War, Japan didn’t stop to finance these states after the end of the total payment in the 1970s. This situation of a state obliged to pay another one is usually problematic and lead to tensions, but this case prove that states have interests of doing so. In the case of Japan that continued to pay these reparations by calling them development aid afterward, such policy had an impact both to increase the soft power and image of Japan in the region, to build friendly relationship with these states and by creating an economic market where it can export and trade with. The interests of development aid are then in this case both economic and political and is then useful to be more vigilant when it comes to this kind of policy, justified by altruism.

            • It is then possible, in accordance with this first point about the interests of states behind the development aid programs, go further in the nation’s strategies by thinking is these kind of policies have or not a more harmful goal or consequences. To justify and bring concrete examples stressed during the lecture and discussions that followed, the Nordic countries and former colonial powers such as France and the United Kingdom could be bring here, as well as China.

            We have indeed in one hand countries such as the Nordic ones, especially Sweden, that are huge donors for international development aid, especially in Africa. These countries seem to be characterized by a will to help without any economic benefit, by pure altruism and will to help. Such social and ideological point of view led then the Nordic government and foreign policies about international aid to be central in their policies. A political consensus is even noticeable in these countries where even the far-right parties are mostly open to these policies, if in their case this choice is less altruist because supposed to stop the issues where they started, it takes the same form and support for international aid program as the one proposed by the more leftists Scandinavian political parties or leaders. However, such strategy led then the Swedes for example to be over represented in institutions such as the United Nations or the European Union on the questions of international development aid and humanitarians issues. If such situation could be seen as just a logical reaction of altruist investments from their respective government, it is also possible to wonder if on the long run, this precious advantage could not become the consequence and interest reached by government that chose to invest in these policies. Indeed, it has been so far the only way to become central on the diplomatic field for these countries that couldn’t have done the same by the conventional means that are military or economics because not as important on these fields as bigger actors. The investment in international development aid could then also hypothetically be motivated by more realistic reasons such as a gain of importance in the diplomatic area.

            On the other hand, there is another type of strategies used by states in order to get benefits from the investment into international development aid programs. These states’ interests are in this case, most of the time, way more visible and concretes. In the special case of France, the United Kingdom or other former colonial powers first, the relations with their former colonies and especially the different forms of financing presented as international development aid seem to be particularly obvious of a will to get economic, political interests or both of them. The case of France is here maybe more obvious since it is the only country to have a permanent military force present on the continent, and keep ambiguous relations with the political situation of its former colonies, relations that received a name: France-Afrique. This name reflects and characterizes the relationship of France vis-à-vis of its former colonies that could easily be called patronizing or belonging to a kind a neo-colonialist attitude. Indeed, by getting economic benefits for its trade or companies, and supporting political leaders, sometimes by military means, and financing, France contributes to continue to patronize some African states and its investments in the continent by the form of development aid could then be a way to finance its political allies and avoid such regime to fall into a civil war situation that could be problematic for its economic investments. The enormous amount of money that these states seem to offer as international development aid could then be seen through a totally different angle that shows a situation where these donations are far from being due to truly altruist considerations. It is also possible to wonder if this fact cannot be stressed even more by the fact that this kind of funding can pass directly from a state to another when it could pass through institutions like the European Union that already fund such development programs. The will of some states to keep independence in these funding could be seen as just practical, or on the other hand, as a way to pursue specific and personal goals and interests.

            In the special case of China, we can also wonder if all the investments that China started to provide in Africa by huge amount are not, in the same way, due to pursue political and economical interests and benefits on the continent. Indeed, the case of China reminds slightly the one of Japan after 1973, by huge investments in African states, China manages quite quickly to become a huge trade partner, get economic benefits, especially from the raw material and minerals, and increase its soft power and diplomatic influence within the continent. We can see with this example that investments and funding of international development aid programs are at the end of the day the same kind of process and reach similar goals.

            • Finally, it is possible to see that the situation in Africa, despite these development aid programs, is not getting better. Indeed, if some examples such as the post civil war program in Mozambique that almost totally cleaned up the country from the mines fields, only few international aid programs managed to be really efficient in Africa. As stated during the debate, if the global idea when the development aid programs came to Africa in the 1970s was that the continent would know the same kind of economic process than South Asia, it is possible to observe today that the situation didn’t improve at all. This can lead to wonder if the strategy apply is really efficient for the development in Africa, and even if there is not a will of the international powers to keep African states at a low economic level in order to continue to exploit it and get economic benefits. The latest Trudeau’s visit in Kurdistan emphasized during the class could here be a concrete example of this strategy. By giving some really useful material to rebuild the country, Trudeau seems to reach a humanitarian goal, whereas this could just be a way to build economic ties with the new regime that would be obliged and dependent of Canada in the future because don’t have any knowledge about this material, non enough quantity of it. In the mean time we can also question if the aid workers in Africa are really helping or not. It could be just a way to know adventure or get a kind of political, social or media influence.  

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. 

Development_Reflection Memo

The development aid is sometimes approached with misconceptions. Overall, we can agree that it is always meant well. However, beyond the intentions being good, this sensitive issue tends to be approached in a business model way. To explain, the targeted country needs to have certain economic characteristics to be interesting for the donors. It needs to achieve some point of poverty to be considered as a worthy target of development aid. Such approach may be understandable, but still, I would say it is too disconnected from the personal attachment, the feeling of moral responsibility to care for those who are less fortunate than us. The living conditions of ordinary people should be at the centre of donors´ interest because their improvement is the starting point of boosting economic development of the country.

            In the class, we spoke about the history of development aid and motivations behind it. We identified the roots of the development aid to the establishment of the Marshall plan, as we could have found also in our readings. This American aid was intended to help Europe to overcome the consequences of the second world war. It focused on helping the European economy, prevent poverty, to make Europe resilient against the spread of communism. The American aid expanded later on. Its financial help to Japan was intended to create economic dependency in order for it to become beneficial for US economy. Such calculations are usually made with creating links where it is agreed ahead that donor´s country´s producers´ products are going to be purchased by the recipient of the aid. This way, both economies can prosper. The donor thus makes sure that he gets something back for his generosity. Nowadays, Japan belongs among the greatest donors in development aid, along with the US. However, the scale of American development assistance in the future is questionable with newly-elected president Trump taking the office, as he claims that he is going to cut this budget radically and rather spend more money on military.

            Nordic countries have a particular position as donors of development aid. It is a particularity in these countries, that their political sphere shares a consensus on moral motivations behind providing the aid. We call this kind of non-business approach ´untied aid´. These countries perceive themselves as the lucky ones, the wealthy states and they consider it naturally to be their moral duty to help the poor countries. They even hold the primacy in being the greatest donors if we consider the amount donated in consideration of their GDP. The Nordic countries prefer to convey their provision of development aid through multilateral channels, such as UN.

            Later on, we spoke about a specific position of France and United Kingdom as former colonial powers. Their example serves as an illustration of a wrong approach of abroad interventions and development aid provision. There are visible signs of colonial legacy which can be observed. These countries both keep relatively strong ties with their former colonies- they influence their economies and politics. Some cases were mentioned, like French president receiving a diamond as a political gift, French interest in economic benefits in contrast with their disinterest in genocide (economic motive prevails). During the debate, there was a hypothesis spoken that if Marine le Pen would become the next French president, we could see an increase in the enforcement of the ties between France and its former colonies. I would say this hypothesis is really probable, as France under le Pen´s rule would need to compensate retraction from the European Union by some other measures and closer relations with its former colonies would be likely a great option to do this as there is still a great potential (ex. source of mineral resources).

            To sum up, every country which participates in the development aid provision decides for itself why and how to do it. The scepticism and criticism of aid is rather a new phenomenon. Before, aid used to only be labelled positively without people trying to examine the donors´ hidden interests behind it. We should take the actual debate about it positively, as constructive criticism can take it all further- it can show us what are our mistakes, why it is not successful in some cases, what we are doing wrong. Taking lessons from our mistakes will lead towards introducing improvements into the process of developing the right approach.

            We also contemplated some questions about the development aid. Why didn´t we succeed to fulfill the millennium development goals? The failure has more reasons. First, the focus was made on a very precise kind of aid. Second, not all the money raised was spent in a meaningful way, which is a result of bad administration of resources. Third, there have been various multiple private charities emerging in recent years which, despite their good intentions, did not help, they may have even made the situation worse. Working with the development aid needs to be taken seriously. It should be channelled through experienced and well organized organizations. The quantity cannot take over quality, because that way the entire effort, including resources, is likely to become useless. Moreover, raising the funds is only part of the work. The entire process of development aid provision needs to be thought over in advance, including its distribution once it gets to the target country. This is sometimes a problem and waste of the efforts once again, as warlords and militias are able to take over it, which makes the situation of ordinary people even worse. In this regard, global trends shows us an improvement as we are getting from ´any kind of help is good´ conception towards seeing a need for more complex projects. These should not only be focusing on helping one part of the problem but to orient on cooperation with political sphere (local politics´ will and participation in the efforts for improvement) and private sphere (making changes in society, make local public participate) of the target state at the same time. One without the other is useless. Mozambique case shows us that is it possible. The beauty of the development aid is that we can see the difference, the improvement, in case of success. And what is important, we need to keep in mind that the motives, no matter of their nature (business or moral), are well meant. If we discover business plans behind it, we need to understand it and not to perceive it as some shady, self-interested calculations. After all, raising money from private companies or other donors with a vision of economic gains in exchange for their charity is one of the main sources of how to raise aid money.

Development Aid_Reading Memo

Foreign aid has been an evergreen issue in most of the developed countries, preceding important international summits like the G20 or Davos, raising questions of aid effectiveness and strategies, which for one reason or the other have not been solved up until today. While it is very easy to be skeptical when considering the magnitude of multilateral and bilateral institutions, trust funds and INGOs and the respective “ineffectiveness” of their work, I argue that one should try look at the issue of international aid through new, unbiased glasses that are not inflicted with the decades long political and economical burden, that lies on the reputation of these institutions. Firstly, I argue that the historical process of foreign aid that has tied the lowdeveloped countries to the west by indebting their national economies can be considered as a clear result of a very transparent policies of the economic hegemons, that shall be not considered as a clandestine conspirator theory, but as a political process led by national interests and greed for capital accumulation that governs every aspect of international relations, not only foreign aid. The articles actually point that out, that the same process was applied in the war torn Europe, and I will add that the same motivations were driving the US coup operations in Latin America, the US loans to Japan, or the US presence in the Gulf. While not defending these policies as “ethical” or “moral”, I disagree with the clichéd rhetoric of western aid, as presented in some of the articles. Secondly, while the articles follow the detailed history of foreign aid and how it transformed from one unsuccessful strategy to the other, only the article by Joseph Hanlon, the Mozambique “success” story, is dealing with the modern strategies of foreign aid. Since the Paris Conference, many international and national institutions realized that a radical change must occur, if they want to prevent further political drawbacks stemming from wasted tax payers money in programs in developing countries which were not needed, unsuccessful, badly managed, duplicated or in some cases even counterproductive (closure of mines in DRK resulting in unemployment and further need for aid). The DAC countries realized the enormous failure of the Millennium Development Goals, where millions of dollars was spent on tied aid, providing food that was not spent and building infrastructure that was not needed. The DAC countries are much aware of the problems they face in the foreign aid issue. Therefore OECD together with the UN introduced the new strategy of Sustainable Development Goals, that, even though sounding almost identical, recognized that the structure of current foreign and had to be changed. The largest component of the change was the introduction of the private sector as a main actor in development. They agreed, that tied aid, being drafted in the donors HQ does not have to reflect the actual needs of the beneficiary country. Furthermore they agreed that the citizens in the developing countries have the capacity (ratio of workforce) to accelerate the nation’s economy, if investments by private companies are made, providing new employment and itinerating the local producers in the shared value chains therefore boosting local entrepreneurs. They will than, together with the assistance of the private donors, be an equal bargaining partner to national governments, calling for an enabling business environment which includes good governance, access to resources and friendly investment climate. I do not advocate for an assured success of this strategy, but the reason I point this out is, that the DAC countries and International institutions are well aware of the problems they caused, mostly due to their own doing in the past, and do not want to provide ineffective aid. However one must consider the complexity of these intertwined institutions that are not able to restructure from one day to another. As mentioned in the article of Mozambique, General Budget Support has also become a major tool for delivering of aid. While it still faces many obstacles, truth is, that it is bureaucratic friendly for the donors’ institutions, furthermore distancing itself from tied aid, “letting” the beneficiary government decide how to spend it, for economic or political rewards. This brings me back to my first raised argument, that even though it might not seem right, even tools like GBS or the private sector support are much connected to the aims and interests of major donors. While it is easy to point out the inflexibility of the large donor institutions, the failures done in past decades, the scandals reported on and the amount of money probably lost in corrupt government officials pockets, the story of the HALO mine free project in Mozambique is a clear example of how foreign aid can directly positively influence the beneficiaries country, increasing safety and good governance. Looking at the list of HALO donors, one can see bilateral partners such as SIDA, GIZ or UKaid together with the UN and EU Commission. So, while in many cases, donor competitiveness, uncoordination and strategic incoherence plagues many regions of Africa, projects like this show that once in a while cooperation led to actual improvement. It is in the national interests of these donors to develop the situation in African countries to unlock the market potential for their products, therefore only a reasonable strategy for this goal has to be found, so in the end both sides will benefit from it. 

Development Aid_Reflection Memo

If someone is to talk about aid there is usually involved a lot of criticism. When grants, loans or humanitarian help is donated many things can go wrong or get complicated even though they should not since the aid aims to improve the lives of the ones who are in desperate need of such help. However, we can still hear the critics pointing to the linkage of aid and corruption, to ineffective spending of loans and grants, or talking about aid missing its targets and goals and of course many more. Everyone would agree, especially the ones in need and of course also the tax payers, that this is not what should be associated with humanitarian or development aid. But how can we change this state of aid? And most importantly where can we find the cause of these damages?

As my colleague has explained during the lesson, I have also started my “thinking era” somehow later, after what I would describe as a “receiving era” of my life. It was the time of just observing, receiving and listening to lots of information coming towards me via television, radio or newspapers without actually searching underneath them or exploring and thinking critically about what I hear and see. In the case of aid donations the criticism is surely needed mainly when the damages are not addressed properly or successfully by the aid or when the aid actually causes additional damages. The critical assessment is thus necessary in order to improve the conditions; however, the constructive approach to criticism is necessary I would say. It would mean to assess what was done successfully and what was not. Then eventually the possible additional damages should be repaired and most of all, what has been said through the lesson and what I definitely agree with is that, the mistakes that have been made should be the lesson to learn from. Furthermore, the aid policy that was assessed as ineffective and unsuccessful should be redirect or the approach should be change in a way to make the aid targets its goals. Thirdly, what we have also mentioned during the class is that this criticism is more useful when it comes in advance. Despite it is surely not entirely possible to identify all the things that might go wrong. It is always better to define the mistakes before the aid is spend and the additional damages are done. The most useful would be in this case to take into consideration past experiences or to compare it to similar cases. Finally, after grants, loans or aid meet their receivers this should be the time for what I would called “after criticism” and which should include a strong evaluation mechanisms, so the aid would not be donated only for the sake of donation but for the sake of either improvement, development or humanitarian reasons present in recipient country.  

We can then ask ourselves whose responsibility is to conduct these steps. Does it lie within the competencies of donors or receivers? In most of the cases we can hear this criticism coming from human rights activists or agencies either international or local where the aid was misused for different purposes. Anyway doesn’t the responsibility of critical thinking belong to the states, private companies or international organizations which donate and coordinate development and aid? Shouldn’t they first and foremost calculate the costs and benefits, but not only the costs for them and their states but for the countries where the aid goes to? I would say that the donors have or should have the prime interest in the evaluation of aid spending even though I would also agree that recipients should hold accountable for the aid spending as well.

In relation to these we were discussing another question through the lesson and that was: “Why states give money to somebody else anyway?” There is a variety of motives and interests including economic as well as political. In relation to today’s world and I am referring mostly to migration crisis and the rise of extremism and recent terrorist attacks within the European Union and the USA the geopolitical and security consideration are in my opinion high on the agenda of aid donor countries coming from these areas. Moreover, even though the search for allies outside the European or North American areas might decreased after the end of the Cold War, it has certainly started to play a much bigger role after 11 September attacks in 2001 and more concretely with the declaration of the fight against terror. That is why both the security concerns and geopolitical aspects are in my opinion very crucial when creating dependency ties with countries within African continent or the Middle East. Such dependency ties or “allies making” developed through aid may create valuable benefits besides the economic ones. I would include information sharing and cooperation in the already mentioned fight against terror. These security interests are particularly the one I think that should motivate the donor countries to think critically and assess constructively how the aid they donate is spend and distribute if they want to satisfy their security interests. On the other hand the geopolitical and security motives may also be the motives which cause that donor countries do not investigate in corruption and effective aid spending and rather prefer continuous government to government cooperation even if it means that recipient government are not transparent but corrupted when it comes to aid in the forms of grants and loans.

Furthermore, considering the development or any aid I think that the legacy of “white man’s burden” and the narratives of neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism will most probably never disappear. And that is the additional reason why donors be it private or governments should abide to transparent and effective aid spending and distribution. My opinion would be that it is crucial to bear in mind the causes why the aid is needed. Mainly development needs, improvement goals, help, and recovery aims. But when it serves mostly interests of donors could it be perceived otherwise than imperialist or neo-colonialist. Does it mean then that donor countries of North America or Western Europe do not want to free themselves from the “burden”? If they continue to serve only their interest then probably they would still be trapped in the vicious circle of these two narratives. Furthermore, they would most probably create additional and additional burdens in the form of poor people opting either to radicalism or criminal activity including terrorism or towards presently very unpopular phenomena within the EU spheres which is the economic migration otherwise known as the “stealing of jobs”.   

Development Aid_Reflection Memo

The topic of international aid within Africa has clearly had mixed results. Our discussion largely focused on the motivations states have for giving international aid and the organizational aspects of the aid, both of which play a determining role in the success of the aid. To begin, we discussed the Marshall plan and its role in post-war Europe. Asked to explain the motivation of the US to provide immense economic aid to Western Europe after the war, the short answer we arrived at was that it was motivated by a desire to increase US influence over Europe, specifically through strengthening the resilience of these European states against the perceived expansionism of the Soviet Union manifested through the ideology of Marxist-Leninism. Here we can observe some clear points of comparison between cases of economic aid in Africa and in Europe, as well as some areas of departure. For example, the class generally reached the conclusion that the primary function of the Marshall plan was to bolster US influence and contain the spread of Communism, not to provide humanitarian aid. I would argue that this is based on a sort of false-dichotomy, as the spread of Communism can be contained by increasing the living standard of the population. Thus claiming that increased economic dependence on the US was the main goal is an oversimplification. Furthermore, viewing increased dependence on the US as instrumental in extending hard US power in Europe also misses some of the nuance in the ideological debate between Communism and Capitalism. Without drawing any moral conclusions about which economic system is superior (surely both have their advantages as well as their faults) I can state that an approach which views the ideological conflict as a type of superficial or soft-power manifestation of a deeper hard power struggle which bears strong resemblance to other bipolar balances of power in the past (for example during the Peloponnesian War) is reductionist and misses some of the aspects that make the Marshall Plan and the Cold War in Europe in general a unique historical phenomenon.

            It is already clear that political influence has a role to play in the decision to provide economic aid in Africa. In the cases of the UK and France, there was some discussion over the notion that these states wished to exert some continued influence over their former colonies. This seems convincing but again slightly reduces the nature of this aid. Colonialism was undeniably an oppressive force in Africa, but it was greatly important in shaping the modern states of Africa, their borders, infrastructure, and communities. I suggest here that moral judgements about the past remain in a moral realm and that we tread a bit more cautiously when trying to apply them to the economic and political realities of modern African states. We can hypothesize about what Africa would be like today without colonialism, but this does little to thoroughly explain the motives of former-colonial powers in providing aid to their former colonies. For one, it makes sense that, if a country has allotted a certain amount of money in their budget to international aid, which without a doubt is limited by the will of the voting populace and parliament than by the number of cases deserving of aid, one can logically conclude that former colonies might receive first preference in giving aid, possibly for no other reason than as a sign of good faith. While this is probably not the case, it is worth considering as a starting point for the comparison we made in class between what we would call influence-based foreign aid, coming from countries like the neoliberal “colonial” powers such as the US and Canada, former colonial powers like the UK and France, as well as emerging powers like China and Russia, against what we agreed was more “purely humanitarian” aid coming fro countries such as Sweden and Norway, which had minimal if any colonial roles in Africa and in whose parliaments even the far right supports financial aid (if only to curb the tide of immigration) and where there is virtual unanimous agreement that the notion of attaching financial aid to national economic interests must not even be considered. To distinguish between these two so sharply is again reductionist, in part for the reason just mentioned, as well because it fails to address the integrated nature of the European and Transatlantic economy. Surely Scandinavian countries, who can boast some of the highest per capita incomes and living standards despite relatively modest GDPs, have an interest in maintaining global stability. With few former colonies to direct aid to, it is easy to see that the sharp distinction drawn between influence-seeking nations and strictly humanitarian ones is also a false dichotomy.

            In addition to this point, we can see a difference in the motivations of the US and China in providing aid to Africa and in the US decision to finance development in Western Europe, as well as even Japan after the war. By the turn of the twentieth century, Japan could boast that it had industrialized and Europeanized its economy and military, defeating imperial Russia in an armed conflict and dispelling longstanding colonialist myths about the inherent superiority of Europeans. Aside from Japan, industrialization was largely relegated to Western Europe and North America. To say that the US targeted these countries for financial aid only because they saw a political opportunity to extend influence ignores the realities of world politics prior to the rise of Fascism and nationalism following World War I. The spread of Communism was considered an existential threat to the industrialized world powers before even WWI, so to see the emergent capitalist superpower attempting to rebuild trust and interconnectivity among the industrialized order that had existed before the catastrophe of World War II as a merely opportunistic extension of influence again misses the nuance of the situation. Viewed in this light, the aid in Africa can be seen as an extension of the ideological conflict between the industrialized democratic world order and the emergent non-democratic powers like China and Russia.

            A second consideration outside of the theoretical motivations behind aid is the methods of implementing it and how they affect its efficacy. The mine removal campaign in Mozambique provides an excellent example of this because, while it was UN sanctioned, it included a lot of contact on the local level, including assessments by the local population before removal about how severe the problem was, surveying the locals to identify the locations of mines, and to seek approval from the population that an area was adequately mine free. In contrast to less successful cases of foreign aid, whose methodology includes business interest of the donating power, we may easily continue to distinguish a hard line between self interested donors and true humanitarians. This distinction falls apart when we consider the trust-building nature of aid, as alluded to in the case of the marshall plan and aid to Japan. If we view aid as an economic stimulus project with a broad array of global political goals rather than clearly delineated humanitarian or self-interested objectives, we can draw a clearer link between the intentions of the donating state and the methodology used, since trust and collaboration among the local populace are not either instrumental to ultimate financial gains or the end in itself for humanitarians, but a combination of the two.       

Development Aid_Reflection Memo

In class, before starting the discussion, we tried to give a definition of development aid and I would like to start my reflection recalling it. The development aid can be defined as the financial aid given by governments, international organizations and other international (or not) agencies to foster and support the economic, political and social development in some countries, especially the ones who are still developing economically speaking. I think it is quite important, even if it’s not easy, trying to define what do we mean for development aid, in order to firstly being able to look at the phenomenon in exam and secondly because is a field of the international cooperation that is continuously under changes. The development aid may assume different forms and so it can consist in the value of official development assistance (ODA), official aid or also the form of private loans. Therefore, when we are looking to one project, one essential thing to do is to understand where the money come from and for what they are conceived to be used by the NGOs, the local associations, the governments or the giving institutions. Acting in this way, one can see if the aid received it’s using in a proper way and what are the achievements reached since that moment. Surely is not the only way to examine the relevance of a project but is undoubtedly one of the indicators to look to.

After having understood what we mean for development aid, is also interesting see when in the international debate started the discourse around the international aid. The origin of the modern development aid can be traced back to the adoption of the US Marshall Plan in 1947. It was designed (officially) for the reconstruction of Europe (as also Japan and other countries in Asia) after the end of the Second World War and with the aim of increase the resilience of the EU countries against the spreading of the communism. One question arose during the debate in class was why the United States should have done something like this and so donate millions of dollar to other countries? Behind the two main “officially” stated interests recalled above, there are some other motives also beyond the humanitarianism and morality willingness to help, and these are the possibility to create connections, benefits and “special relationships”, or like the share of knowledge and skills among different countries and players. Thus, can be seen as a confirmation that nothing, especially when important State’s interests are in stake, is done freely or without constraints. As well as the United States, also the former Soviet Union, in the aftermath of the Second World War, tried to exercised influence in countries under its control through different methods and, giving aid for development in the form of financial aid or military-logistic support, was one of them. Therefore, it can be said that both the so-called superpowers have knowledge and experience in this field. Both have claimed, for the last 50 years since 1990s, to be the right and only model of State, economy, society and way to follow. Given that we are speaking about an issue that involved both of them, one so should ask: did it worked the way through which they give money and aid for the development? If yes, what are the achievements reached, and in which fields? If not, what went wrong and why?

 Answering to these questions is not simple at all. Firstly, maybe they are too vague so in order to give a fair view of this phenomenon one should look at one case study and look at its history and dynamics, because each States has its own characteristics and for that differs from another. Secondly, the US and the former Soviet Union were and are not the only actors who played a role in the international cooperation in the last 60 years. Indeed, a relevant role was, and still now is, played by the former motherlands and so by Great Britain, France and Italy, which mainly lay their action in this field on moral obligations towards their former colonies. Other important actors are the medium powers like Canada, Japan (until 1973 when it finished paying back the US for the debts caused during the Second World War and started its economic grow) and the Nordic countries like Sweden, Norway or Denmark. The behaviour of these States differs quite a lot from the US’ one in example, because of the differences in the values on which the societies are structured and relay on and for the motives who lead their involvement and action in giving aid and money. Hence, the Nordic States in giving development aid are referring on humanitarian and moral obligations so on the belief that rich countries have the duty to help the poor. At the same time among those countries was also developed the idea of Nordic welfare state thought with the aim of helping poor people and group with no or weak access to resources. Thus, it seems they are following a pattern towards the issue of the development aid, which in a sense is as an “extension” or a lengthening of what they are doing with their own citizens. One question that one should ask now is: does the pattern followed by the Nordic countries contribute in a positive way to the development of the recipients countries of aid? Can be traced some useful guidelines in their behaviour towards the development aid that can be used in a combination with others?

One thing that I have noticed during the discussion in class is that, after having identified the main actors who played an important role in the issue at stake, someone said that the majority, if not all, the patterns of development followed since now have failed because there are still countries in need and still same problems of yesterday. I do not agree with this opinion because I think that it is too simplistic saying something like this and it does not fit well the reality of the things. Certainly, is true that often the money and aid received from ODA’s countries was misused or ended to be spent by the authorities inappropriately, and this is especially true in some African States were the level of corruption is really high and tangled with the society. Therefore, it happened that the target of some projects was not reached due to a range of different motives but despite that, this is just a side of a medal. Indeed, looking at the situation worldwide we can say that a lot of improvements and achievements were obtained also because of the constant work of the local communities and actors who believed in what they were doing and have faced problems and difficulties at their best, maybe sometimes even failing but then picking up again.

In addition, seeing how capital is invested and how money is used it is quite a difficult issue because the effect of capital investments depends on each so-called recipient countries, and so on the conditions of countries who are receiving money and aid. There are many areas or sectors involved in the development aid; the most important in term of amount of money donated is the social sector who entailed different kind of projects from water supply and health to education or good governance and civil society. These projects are mainly based on moral or humanitarian values and in my opinion, especially the social projects, but not only, should be conceived to be a springboard for the later development of the local communities. At the centre of the action of NGOs, local agencies or organizations that work in the field of the cooperation should be the individual. For that, every steps undertaken should be conceived putting the basic needs of individuals at first, with the aim of granting equal fundamental rights to everyone.

In this context, we can refer also to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of United Nation in which, among the goals to reach are listed also the fight to HIV/AIDS, malaria and other disease, reduce child mortality, eradicate extreme poverty and achieve universal primary education. A lot has been done since now but we cannot say that these problems are not anymore. In order to being able to try to solve, or reduce these problems, I think that what is required is a strong and good faith cooperation among the numerous actors at the international level and the willingness not to exploit situations to their own advantages. A not easy task again.

I would like to end my comment saying that I still have hope in people. I believe that if we want to see the change in something or riot against a model or a way to behave that we see as not sufficient to solve the problem, we should star first start changing the thing by ourselves. We can be the change that we want to see in the world, but always respecting other ideas and believes because we are all the same, with the same desire of happiness and joy.

Development Aid_Reflection Memo

International and development aids in Africa are a particularly difficult matter to handle as it is enveloped in a mist of vagueness. Through the readings and the debate that took place in class, one particular aspect of it occurred to us : aids in all its form is not necessarily good, even though it is meant to be constructive, especially in Africa and thus for many reasons. It seems that we can in all likelihood ask ourselves why development and international aids, as abundant as they can be, fail to efficiently reduce poverty and all the social challenges African countries are facing, even though most of them display more than promising growth rates. Based on the class debate, it seems that one of the most important hindering factor to an efficient application of development aids is corruption. Indeed, in Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo mentions on one hand the case of Mobuto Sese Seko, Zaire's president, using development funds for personal matters and on the other the case of Nigeria where development aids only benefit a marginal group of the Nigerian population which is favoured by the clientelist power in place. It has also been mentioned that some commodities coming from international aids were hijacked in favor of local militias and insurgent groups. It seems therefore that in order to benefit entirely from development aids, these countries need a good and strong governance, the establishment of a purely democratic regime which would, according to all the moral and political codes linked to it, promptly preserve its citizens' interests. However, it might be misleading to consider that democracy would be some kind of panacea. One can invoke the neo-patrimonialism concept to show the limits of such a reasoning. Indeed, it is clear that many countries like Zaire or Nigeria are ruled by hybrid powers, at the crossroads between traditional way of ruling based on tribal models and Western state models. This obviously has an effect on population and on how it perceives the leader. In a nutshell, the latter is still considered as a patriarchal figure meant to protect his subjects. He remains therefore completely legitimate as a ruler even though his actions and resources management do not necessarily benefits the population. As Johannes Fabian put it, « the power is eaten whole » (in the original French, « le pouvoir se mange entier »), which alludes to the fact that the ruler is expected to exercise power with authority, subject only to an equal treatment of all citizens. In practice, it has been seen that this kind of regime leads to cronyism, in Nigeria for instance, which may lead to popular ire and contestations of such practices. Nevertheless, it does not necessarily shatters the leader's influence and this autocratic model remains deeply culturally rooted, which hampers any attempt of instituting a proper management of international and development aids. One can argue that donors can suspend development aids for uncooperative regimes in order to coerce them into establishing an solid and efficient governance. Indeed, in virtue of article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement, the European Union can suspend its development aids and has done so for Burundi and Togo, among other countries. Nonetheless, even though this suspension has been deemed successful by the European Union in Togo insofar as it helped strengthening the democratisation process, it has been absolutely devastating for Burundi's economy, which has been worn out by such a sanction. Zimbabwe was also deprived of its European development aids during Robert Mugabe's presidency and as it turns out, it was not as successful as expected. Furthermore, we can also ask ourselves about the issue of dependency on these aids. Indeed, the case of Mozambique has been mentioned. As it has been presented to us, it is one of the most aid dependent countries and it keeps benefiting from aids as the Mozambican government appears to be particularly cooperative. However, if the Mozambican government stops meeting its donors' political agendas, leading to a suspension of the aids he receives from them, how will it sustain its economical stability ? From this point on view, one can argue that development aids can actually and paradoxically be an obstacle to development, specifically political and perhaps even societal development. All in all, it seems that development and international aids are closely intertwined with the notion of governance. The fact remains that the myth of international aid is largely based on the Marshall Plan and the fact that it brought back stability in Western Europe and rejuvenated its economy in the aftermath of World War II. However, it is clear that a comparison between the Marshall Plan and the aids benefiting African countries is more than irrelevant, mainly because colonialism and the decolonization process left most African countries in a deep political doldrums.. By granting tremendous aids to fragile and unwilling goverments, donors are actually hindering the development that they try to induce. Finally, one can also argue that African development needs to be comprehended other than through a European and American point of view. Owing to its ethnic and cultural background, solutions to African precarity need to be elaborated in light of the population' specificities. It is most certainly not the concept of development aids that is so harshly criticized but its inadequacy with the African political and cultural context, especially when it leads (as we can see it in Mozambique) to a situation in which cutting development aids would have dramatic consequences and in the same time, maintaining them does not necessarily leads to an enhancement of living conditions.