Dear Simon,
Thank goodness that once again we have a British government which regards world poverty as a shameful scandal, rather than as some sort of social tonic encouraging thrift and hard work.
But the truth is that development aid as it exists today is not an efficient means of financial transfer. A huge proportion-it rarely drops below 50 per cent-returns to the donor country in the form of contracts and salaries. For technical assistance, now the biggest part of British aid, the flow-back is higher.
An enormous amount of professional energy has gone into making aid projects a success. But-according to figures you yourself have quoted-we can regard about one third of aid programmes as successful, one third as damaging and one third as in between. Recently, you set the success rate "a bit higher"; but that can hardly be regarded with any pride.
In any case, aid is usually assessed according to its own criteria. This is problematic: a growing body of research shows that it is the unintended consequences of aid which are most important. Aid can prop up authoritarian governments, allowing them to resist democratic reforms and inflict brutal repression. Unfortunately the record of using aid as a tool for human rights and democracy is not good.
When the cold war ended in 1990 British aid was, for the first time, formally linked to the democratic credentials of recipient governments. Many in the aid business welcomed the chance for "real aid" at last. But Britain did not impose punitive conditions on China and Indonesia, partly because they would have had no effect. (I don't detect a change in policy under Labour.) Aid hasn't been very good at the practicalities of building peace and democracy either: witness the experiments in Cambodia and Somalia. In countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, we give aid to human rights institutions and to train policemen: laudable but limited.
The aid apparatus is very difficult to reconcile with democracy because of the entrenched interests of donors and aid bureaucracies, and because of problems intrinsic to the aid encounter. Almost all forms of planned social change enhance bureaucratic power, allowing governments or other external forces to intrude into people's lives. In the aid encounter, power remains with the donor. Even the most benign conditions serve to keep power in the north; even a successful aid programme can have negative side effects which may be more important.
Yours ever,
Alex de Waal
22nd December 1997
Dear Alex,
I'm pleased you think world poverty is a "shameful scandal." It certainly is: worldwide, 1.3 billion people scrape by on less than $1 per day. Both of us know something of what this means to the people involved.
But the core of your argument is that the "aid encounter" subverts democracy and makes it less rather than more likely that governments will take poverty reduction seriously. Alex, I cannot believe that you mean us to take this wild generalisation at face value. Does it apply to India, for example, which received $1.7 billion worth of aid in 1995? I have read your book. I know you don't think it does.
Perhaps you are trying to be more subtle. Let me help you out with a proposition we can actually test. How about this: "when aid reaches a certain threshold-say 10 per cent of income or 20 per cent-it subverts the government's willingness to tax domestically, or allows domestic revenue to be diverted away from key sectors like health and education." The evidence is against you-but suppose it wasn't. Why do you think we have donor conditions, or international compacts like the 20:20 initiative (20 per cent of aid and 20 per cent of government budgets for the social sectors)? For the tax-payers who pay for aid, these are the guarantees of minimum performance.
You will argue that some large aid recipients are venal, corrupt or undemocratic; we can both think of such cases. But you need to show causality, not just an association. You also need to show that the measures you scoff at-funding elections or civil service reform or even police training-fail to work. Look how fast democracy has spread in the past 15 years in Latin America and Africa. Has aid-and its attached conditions-not played a part? You have spent too much time in South Sudan, Alex. Hard cases make for bad generalisations.
The fact is, most aid does work. This $55 billion industry is among the most studied and most carefully evaluated of all. The evidence can be built up from case studies or from cross-country statistical analysis. Emergency aid saves lives and helps to protect livelihoods. Technical assistance builds capacity and contributes to better policy. Financial aid funds schools, water points and agricultural improvement. Of course, in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions, we occasionally fail. More often, we do not. Damn it, Alex, you set up your own NGO in Sudan: you know it's hard, and you know it's worth it. We need more aid, not less. Britain currently lies 15th out of 21 donors in the OECD merit table of aid as a share of national income. That's the stick we should be using to beat this government, not some half-baked argument about governance.
Clare Short has committed the government to help halve the proportion of people living in absolute poverty by 2015. This is an ambitious target, and both of us would probably agree that it won't be met. But do please think what the target means before you try to seize the moral high ground on aid. Reducing poverty means helping people to secure sustainable livelihoods. It means providing primary education, health care, clean water and law and order. None of these is free. In the poorer countries, per capita income is less than ?100 a year; government budgets are typically less than ?20 per head, even including aid. Do you really want to cut this? You wouldn't suggest cutting state safety nets in this country or reducing expenditure on health or education. How dare you play games with the welfare of the poorest people in the world.
Yours in sorrow,
Simon Maxwell
24th December 1997
Dear Simon,
I suppose I should be grateful that you have not charged me with taking food from the mouths of hungry children-as others did when I opposed the military intervention in Somalia-but your last sentence is not far off. This should be beneath you. The aid business has played quite enough games with poor countries and poor people-from damming rivers and displacing multitudes to trying to run countries like Somalia.
Poverty and famine matter. They are too important for us to accept the illusion that aid, as it exists today, is the answer. The question is: can there be "real aid" that works? You write about existing aid as though it were-or could quickly become-this "real aid," in which our few pounds of foreign assistance make the difference in the lives of desperately poor people. But not much aid fits this profile, nor is it likely to do so. Some helps-and I like to think that some of the programmes I have set up have brought modest but real benefits (the near-eradication of leprosy in one corner of Tanzania, blunting an atrocious famine inflicted on the Nuba people of Sudan). But I don't subscribe to the illusion that aid can, on the whole, make the difference. In the case of Tanzania, it needs debt relief and the opening up of markets in Europe to its produce. In the case of the Nuba, they have survived and will continue to do so largely through their own efforts.
Let us distinguish between the moral imperative of ending the scandal of famine and abject poverty, and the call on us (as affluent people) to make donations to those who are poor and insecure. It is dangerous to conflate the two. I fear that you are doing this when you rank Britain's moral worth by our position in the OECD table of aid donors. It's all very well to be a giving society, but overcoming poverty demands something else.
Those who dig deeper into the impact of aid find disturbing side effects. James Ferguson's analysis of World Bank projects in Lesotho is a classic case: The Anti-Politics Machine is a tribute to the ability of the aid apparatus to turn profound political issues into questions of technical skill and charitable generosity.
My own work on famine has come to much the same conclusion, namely that the "humanitarian international" is primarily a means of managing famine-stopping it from being a political threat or scandal rather than preventing it. It saves some lives in the short term, but often at a frightful political cost. Famine prevention requires an altogether different approach, based on building political accountability around social and economic rights (not necessarily the same as elections). Aid more often impedes than hastens this process. It will continue to do so unless it is radically reformed in much more ambitious ways than you-or the government-are willing to concede.
Yours in hope,
Alex
26th December 1997
Dear Alex,
I love you to pieces! I knew you would come round to my way of thinking. Your last letter shows signs of coming to grips with the messy realities of the real world.
We agree about the desirability of "real aid," and about the need to weed out political, commercial and bureaucratic distortions. You will not find me backsliding when it comes to exposing scams like Westland helicopters or the Pergau dam. Indeed, I was-and am-a member of the Independent Group on British Aid, which first coined the term "real aid" in our 1982 report Real Aid: a Strategy for Britain.
Real Aid is about a larger aid programme which is more focused on poverty reduction and more consistent with policy on trade, international finance and the environment. Measured against those benchmarks, Clare Short's recent white paper on international development has many strengths. Short is uncompromising in her commitment to poverty reduction and has won important victories in Whitehall, both on her general mandate and on specific policies. The abolition of the Aid and Trade Provision, which provided commercial subsidies to British companies from the aid programme, is a real step forward.
At the same time, the white paper is short on specifics. You and I can both contribute, I think, by helping to define performance targets for the new Department for International Development. Standards for aid quality? A timetable for reform of aid from the EU? A government-backed charter for fair trade? Commitments, as you suggest, to market access for Tanzania? Count me in.
Performance standards are about accountability-one of your pet themes. You must be pleased that the International Red Cross now has a code of good conduct for NGOs working in emergencies, and that it is considering an ombudsman for relief operations. There are many similar initiatives in the international arena. My own contribution is a citizens' charter for food security, setting out the guarantees citizens should be able to expect from the state: for example, that every mother and every child is guaranteed a regular nutrition check and participation in a food programme if they need it.
Alex, let's compromise. You abandon your absurd position that all aid is unequivocally bad; and I'll forgive you for misrepresenting me as believing that all aid is unequivocally good. Then we can work together, as we have in the past, to improve things at the margin.
I'm faxing this to you in Addis Ababa. I, too, was there the week before last. Over 47 per cent of Ethiopia's children are malnourished; 7m people face famine this year because of late rains flattening the crops. In Somalia, next door, more than 1,000 people are reported to have perished in recent floods. I don't want you to accuse me of moral blackmail, but if we are able to help, we should do so. We can help, Alex, and if you will only let us get on with it, we will.
Yours in friendship,
Simon Maxwell
29th December 1997
Dear Simon,
I am encouraged by your commitment to the reform of aid-and progress clearly is being made. But it's not for me to compromise. It's not my country that is afflicted by aid. It is aid recipients who are becoming more assertive about which forms of aid they will and will not accept. This has long been the case in much of Asia; it is now becoming marked in Africa, from Asmara to Kinshasa.
In the field of emergency relief to Africa, it is almost certainly too late for reform. Several years of growing distrust of the humanitarian international came to a head 12 months ago when leading agencies called for military intervention in Zaire. For many this was final proof that it was politically dangerous to associate with such organisations.
This is why I am here in Addis Ababa. The future of the humanitarian apparatus belongs in the regions, not in western capitals such as London. In the past two years the locus of political initiative has moved decisively to the regions; the next challenge is for humanitarian initiatives to come from here too. I will be based here with an African institution, the Inter-Africa Group.
The reforms you speak about are laudable. (And I have never held the view that all aid is bad.) But they simply do not go far enough. If the term "partnership," used so liberally in the white paper, is to be meaningful, I suggest that the decision-making is brought as close to the recipients as possible. Aid allocations and evaluations should be made here, not in London. Second, the aid apparatus should be made transparent and accountable, just as donors demand from recipients. Third, recipients are interested in outcomes, not philanthropy. So let the Ethiopians tender for the services they need, and let aid agencies compete with other service providers (including private sector companies).
We must recognise that getting "real aid" will mean-in the short term-the pendulum swinging to the other extreme: recipient countries taking tough decisions against today's aid apparatus. Then we can look forward to a real partnership against poverty, and a truly productive role for development professionals such as yourself.
See you in Addis,
Alex
30th December 1997
Dear Alex,
A job in Addis. Lucky you. I will refrain from asking whether you will be funded by somebody's aid programme. But do remember that many of the excellent people you will work with in Ethiopia have been trained abroad-by aid; that the water you drink and the electricity you use in Addis will have been provided in part by aid; and that the relative stability in Ethiopia has been buttressed by aid. Do not misunderstand me. I am passionate about Ethiopia, as you are, and the first to recognise its peoples' integrity and independence. But the fact of the matter is that Ethiopia is a large recipient of aid: $900m in 1995, equivalent to $16 per head or 19 per cent of GNP. Millions of ordinary Ethiopians enjoy the benefits.
You say you will be working in Ethiopia to help local people regain control of aid. I spent ten years of my life doing much the same, in Kenya, India and Bolivia. You are right: institution-building is central to the aid endeavour. You cannot ignore the donors, however. They are responsible to their consciences as well as their tax-payers, and shouldn't just hand over the cash.
The EU came close to doing this in the early days of the Lom?onvention, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Here was an international treaty which guaranteed the aid flow to poor countries and privileged their right to self-determination. The concept was "contractuality." It sounded good, but it left the EU exposed to justified criticism over money wasted and over aid to tyrants such as Idi Amin and Mengistu Haile Mariam. The EU moved rapidly in the late 1980s to strengthen aid conditions and insert human rights clauses into Lom?lt;BR>
The convention is still a negotiated international treaty-but behind the fa?e, the EU has become more like the World Bank or the IMF than it sometimes cares to admit. And rightly so.
Clare Short is more than halfway there with the white paper's emphasis on "partnership." She is right to offer countries something more than a traditional aid relationship if they can show that they are committed to democracy and poverty reduction. Governments of developing countries should indeed be accountable-to their own people and to the international community. India is often cited as a country which makes good use of aid, for just those reasons.
Clare Short's next step must be to spell out what our partners will receive in return for good behaviour. She must be accountable, too. Perhaps we need a modified version of the Lom?onvention for ourselves, laying down the British government's responsibilities.
Alex, it's time to draw this correspondence to a close. I'm grateful to you for reminding us of issues which academics and aid administrators too often forget. I hope I've convinced you, however, that "real aid" is both necessary and achievable. Indeed, I believe you thought so all along.
Yours,
Simon Maxwell
