Posted on Friday 10 July 2009
The French translation of The While Man’s Burden, Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, has just come out. I wonder if many in France will pay attention to William Easterly’s warning.
While I’m on the subject, I belatedly mention a great documentary broadcast in April by Channel 4: Haiti, the Island that Ate Itself, by Aidan Hartley.
It shows how Haitians are trapped in a cycle of environmental disaster, hunger, and aid dependency – it is perhaps the most extreme example of what is happening to many of the world’s poorest countries.
One man tells Hartley that Haitians are praying to God for the food aid to continue forever.
The only dissenting voice is a priest working in a refugee camp, where thousands live off aid while waiting for the next emergency. He says:
“We think relief has lasted too long. The people are now in a vicious circle. You want them to take their futures in their hands. At the same time you’re feeding them. You’re giving them all they need. What do you expect?”
Je salue la traduction du livre de William Easterly The White Man’s Burden, dont j’avais parlé lors de sa sortie.
C’est une analyse documentée des limites de l’aide au développement, par un économiste qui sait écrire.
Pour les détails de la version française, cliquer ici.
Sur le même sujet, je recommande (avec retard) l’excellente émission d’Aidan Hartley sur Haiti diffusée il y a quelques mois sur la chaîne britannique Channel 4.
Intitulé L’île qui s’est mangée elle-même, ce reportage montre comment Haïti est pris dans un cercle vicieux, où l’aide sape la volonté de ses habitants de s’en sortir.
Seul un prêtre dans un camp de réfugiés semble voir clairement le drame de son pays:
“Nous pensons que l’assistance a trop duré. Les gens sont pris dans un cercle vicieux.
Vous attendez qu’ils prennent en main leur avenir, mais vous pourvoyez à tous leurs besoins.
Comment voulez-vous qu’ils fassent?”
In 200 years, the aid sophism will have been debunked, exposed and all gone- hopefully since a long time by then. Who is getting bled nowadays to “cure” all sorts of diseases. We are all laughing at bleeding, but it is not as absurd at we know it is now. If disease are carried through blood, bleeding will evacuate the disease agent. How giving free stuff can be detrimental to anyone? It is though, it bloody is…
Barack Obama, when he was in Ghana last week, rightly said: “The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it’s no longer needed.”
By that standard it has patently failed. African governments typically get more than 30% of their budget from foreign donors – and in some cases much more (about 60% for Tanzania and Uganda, I think)). Yet according to an UNCTAD paper issued last October, “budget support is on the rise, particularly in Africa”.
food aids are badly needed by third world countries and we really need to give something to the poor.“:
we can always give food aid to the african countries if we just save some pennies and donate it to them ;*`