My favorite assignment for this week (by far) is the TED talk. The speaker, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, discussed issues of infrastructure and discipline as the main hurdles that Africa as a continent needs to address before aid can really be effective. This issue of infrastructure seems so obvious that it is like an elephant in the room. How can it be constantly overlooked? What is the US so afraid of? By investing time and money into infrastructure Africa would benefit in so many ways. Like she mentioned, health care, education and agriculture would be way more effective if there were roads to transport people to and from the necessary locations to better utilize the help they receive. If only, if only. How do we facilitate such changes? Who makes the decisions to spend money on building infrastructure? What is keeping such collaboration from happening? It seems like part of the answer to that question lies in the power that is held by western nations that use resources from Africa. It sucks to think that by keeping them disempowered we have more to gain. I truly believe that the opposite is true. Not only would empowerment achieve more effective aid but as Ngozi said, it would create more knowledge and better citizens of those nations and enrich our global environment.
The economic failures talk, was interesting because Easterly addressed similar issues as Ngozi did. However, I wanted him to put forth some ideas about resolving or beginning to resolve the issue. What problems needed to be fixed most? It got me wondering about effectiveness, something that prior to this course I had never thought about, and now am finding myself more and more interested in. So I looked up an article that you can find here, that discusses some of the conflicting experiences people from Peace Corps walk away with.
The Mercy Corps and UNDP sites were interesting in that they both showed differing stances on how to help populations in need. I really like the fact that MC works with people from the international communities that they serve, they are the main leaders in the community rather than white transplants that know relatively little about the cultural practices. This is a really important difference between them and Peace Corps. I think it is crucial to support those within a community first and foremost. While the UNDP seems to have really good intentions, I think their priorities list was pretty skewed in order to be a universal one size fit all solution. These needs will be prioritized differently by each community, and within that community by the groups and individual differently. So how can we impose our own system of priority onto those we wish to help? It just doesn’t sound like help to me.
Finally, the book chapter had some devastating information to report. I am curious (like everyone else) as to what these stats look like in today’s world. I also thought it was interesting that the author notes how little of the US’s GDP is devoted to foreign assistance, but I wonder what the private donations and service hours look like.
I like your idea of a white transplant. I think this is a pretty good way of describing what has been going on. The case with the world bank and organizations not being held accountable for making sure the money is going where it needs to be is partly due to a lack of knowledge about the culture and the people they are dealing with. I think it is important to get to know the location and the real situations of these countries.
ReplyDeleteI like that you pointed out that Easterly did a great job of talking about the problems but offered no solutions. The peace corps site that you pointed out shed some more light on the tensions organizations face when dealing with other countries and cultures. I also like your comparison of the Peace corps and Mercury corp. Although they both exist to help poorer nations, their reason for existence are much different. I had no idea one of the major missions of the Peace Corps was to give the US a good image. Just like in our personal lives, if we do what's right, we won't have to worry about our image.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the Peace Corps evaluation link! I have heard of this argument many times before in class but never looked into it really, and this article helped a lot. Effectiveness is hard to measure I suppose, unless you have a tangible, quantifiable goal set from the beginning, which even in the rare times you do, what if you feel you could have done more? I too wish Easterly had provided more solutions to the problems he mentioned, because I'm sure he has some good ones.
ReplyDeleteYou said something about how can we impose our priorities onto those we wish to help? That is a common question for the military as well. I think that whenever we (Americans) work with or in other cultures we are often ignorant and ill equipped to deal with what is actually good for other countries and sustainable. It annoys me that we think we know what is best for everyone else and that means to make them more like us. Americans are not known for embracing other cultures.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the UNDP priorities list was not affective. It's important to address the people receiving aid and ask what their priorities are. As Americans, we tend to just charge in without asking and sometimes, it's not appreciated.
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