Aid ambivalence

Sorry for the long wait for a post--been in a no power/no internet situation for a while here. I'm at an internet cafe catching up. Pic of Victoria Falls coming soon!
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I've been struggling with a lot of aid ambivalence while I've been here. I tend to be fairly anti-aid, because it erodes governance and sovereignty while not actually creating long-run growth, but being here has made me at once more skeptical of aid and more convinced that it's necessary.

On one hand, I see to what extent it fosters corruption and cripples a country's ability to respond itself to its citizens' needs. I'm also suspicious of any source of government revenue that doens't come directly from the tax base--remittances, oil revenues...--because they make the government accountable to the source of that revenue, not its citizens. The citizens, in turn, feel a sense of helplessness because they know it's not really via their money and votes that the government exists, and so they have limited power to influence its actions. On the other hand, I see to what extent aid plays an essential and irreplaceable role in easing the suffering of the citizens of these countries while the governments get their acts together. All the malaria drugs, TB treatment, antibiotics...I don't think they're contributing to economic development, but I don't see how they could be hurting either, and in the mean time they're saving tons of lives. I can't imagine taking away a single pill or school book that the donors provide.

I guess the key distinction is humanitarian aid administered on the ground by NGOs vs. government budgetary support. The former is rife with problems and can be subject to diversion and abuse, but seems to make people's lives better off at the end of the day. The latter finances corrupt regimes, serves the issuing country's interests instead of the recipient's, and is too often aimed at the en vogue doctrine of development that is later discredited.

Yet, I also don't know how developing country governments will learn to function without aid, and I don't think it's as easy as Dambisa Moyo says. Moyo's book, while a nice wake up call to the international community that thinks we can solve other people's problems, and alleviate our own colonial guilt, by throwing more money into development, ultimately comes up short in offering either a clearheaded analysis of the issue or proposal for solution. She fails to distinguish between aid dollars that might actually be doing some good and those that are ending up lining the pockets of french-tailored suits. Moreover, she fails to offer a solution for the many well-intentioned people who can't imagine, and shouldn't, leaving Africa in the lurch. How do we put an end to the deleterious side effects of aid without also putting an end to the chances for survival and education for millions of African children?

And so here again I find myself breaking with the critics of aid, who would claim it has accomplished nothing. True, as William Easterly notes, the trillion dollars spent haven't wiped out malaria or eliminated childhood malnutrition. But here in Zambia, there are health clinics where mothers can get antibiotics for their children, there are HIV drugs that mean longer lives for people in urban communities, there's education about cholera that has meant an end to outbreaks, and there are insecticide-treated nets, yes, sometimes being used in the river for fishing, but also hanging over sleeping 5-year-olds and pregnant mothers. For all that aid hasn't done, and that's a lot, let's not forget that the dollars that aren't being stolen are often making a real difference in the lives of individuals.

So what's the way forward? I guess I don't know. But I would ask that we stop measuring aid's success, or planning for its disbursement, in terms of GDP percentage points, and return to thinking about the people we're trying to help. It's the children who are getting antibiotics and sleeping under ITNs that the international community is thinking of when they attend Bono rallies and write blank checks. So instead of stopping aid, let's transform it into something that reaches those children. Let's cut back the amount that goes to corrupt government for infrastructure projects that lead nowhere and American goods we can't wait to offload and put this money into the NGOs who have proven their effectiveness at fighting disease and the other symptoms of poverty, even while we are unable to diagnose its cause. Let's let Africa and Africans map out their own future, and their own way to prosperity, and simply provide relief to those who must suffer along the way. Until we find the magic pill for growth, let's stick to pills for deworming and disinfecting.