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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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 Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2009 9:02 am Post subject: |
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| I just get tired of the sanctimony and the U.S. always being the pinata for everyone who thinks the West should do more. |
This is a bit old, but if you ignore the tsunami references, there is still the message: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676
The West could do more but they wouldn't have to if they did it smarter. As for the US, their aid as a % of the GDP is just over half of the abyssmal Canadian .28%. That's far and away the lowest of any Western countries (and much lower than Europe).
Here is a fantastic read on the topic (IMO anyways)
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/oda/2005/08stingysamaritans.htm
As for tied aid, I did find this:
[img]http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/oda/2005/08stingy-graph2.gif[/img]
crap!
Anyways....
it's on the previous link...just over half way down.
(Tied, partially tied, and untied data in chart form!) |
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it's full of stars
Joined: 26 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2009 9:37 am Post subject: |
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| Thanks for article Khyber, very interesting. Doesn't appear to be too partisan, if that's the correct word to use. |
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ManintheMiddle
Joined: 20 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2009 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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full of _____ [something]:
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| So tough if you're tired. As you said it's the biggest donor, it's the biggest economy and whatever else big. Behave like it. Whether that means giving more money, sending in more development, community workers or whatever. Or just be more mature about it. America is the obvious target when talking about the West, get over it. |
Oh, I won't lose sleep over it. But what I won't "get over" so easily is the utter hypocrisy of sanctimonious Western Europeans and Canadians (notice I don't lump Eastern Europeans into that category, given that they tend to be more level-headed--oops, another generalization). |
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it's full of stars
Joined: 26 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 10:18 am Post subject: |
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I'm sorry you feel like this;
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| what I won't "get over" so easily is the utter hypocrisy of sanctimonious Western Europeans and Canadians |
What do you mean by this?
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| I don't lump Eastern Europeans into that category, given that they tend to be more level-headed |
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Insidejohnmalkovich
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
Location: Pusan
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| The only way to help places like Somalia is to "take up the white man's burden" and recolonize them. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Insidejohnmalkovich wrote: |
| The only way to help places like Somalia is to "take up the white man's burden" and recolonize them. |
It is not our job to help them. We have no obligation, no authority. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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I think we have a moral obligation for humanitarian aid. I think a more altruistic approach to developmental aid would be better too (though I don't really think there is the moral obligation). Numerous reports have shown that untied aid ends up having more bang for the buck (no surprise there). There is also less pressure from the donating nation to dictate the needs of Africans and so more appropriate project choices would be made.
*When I told my dad about Easterly, he was very keen to read it. He brought up an example of a bread factory that was built with development aid monies in Kigali that never operated (because it was under/ill equipped with broken machinery). |
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the_wicker_man
Joined: 14 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:20 am Post subject: |
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Hi - I made this thread and I am finished with it, I won't moderate it or add to it any longer. I made my assertion, it was challenged, I answered the challenge. I am satisfied. If you feel you want continue this thread, BYOB.
wicker |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 7:33 am Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| I'm pretty sure that "aid" is a really huge umbrella term and that it's carried out in myriad different ways. I think it would be tough to generalize. I'll definitely recommend the books to my folks though. They LOVE reading about aid work. |
Easterly just started a blog..
http://blogs.nyu.edu/fas/dri/aidwatch/ |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:18 am Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
I think we have a moral obligation for humanitarian aid. I think a more altruistic approach to developmental aid would be better too (though I don't really think there is the moral obligation). Numerous reports have shown that untied aid ends up having more bang for the buck (no surprise there). There is also less pressure from the donating nation to dictate the needs of Africans and so more appropriate project choices would be made.
*When I told my dad about Easterly, he was very keen to read it. He brought up an example of a bread factory that was built with development aid monies in Kigali that never operated (because it was under/ill equipped with broken machinery). |
I studied Development as a M.A. and wrote a thesis about it...it's about the most corrupt thing you can possibly imagine. Personally, the entire third world is littered with the remants of development projects through and through.
The BIGGEST thing the world can do for Africa in particular, is forgive its debt - at the moment, they are all owing significant amounts of money mostly due to development. Wipe away their debts, and they'd have a fighting chance.
At the moment, I don't know exact statistics, but the interest alone is fairly phenemonal that they owe each month, let alone being able to possibly create wealth to put into anything domestic. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 8:38 am Post subject: |
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| Tiger Beer wrote: |
The BIGGEST thing the world can do for Africa in particular, is forgive its debt - at the moment, they are all owing significant amounts of money mostly due to development. Wipe away their debts, and they'd have a fighting chance. |
Debts have been forgiven over time, and the states then just take more debt. Also, compared to the debt that Korea took on (and then made irrelevant via growth) Africa's debt burden is not insurmountable. It is a distraction from real domestic problems, IMO.
Korea's total debt in response to the AFC was 70b, mostly from the IMF. Korea repaid the loans early. Africa's total debt burden now (including the more wealthy North African states - Eqypt, Morocco, Tunisia) and South Africa is about 300b. Sub-saharan Africa owes about 240b from a GDP of 750b. At the time of the AFC, Korea's bailout was 27% of GDP.
Debt forgiveness is a distraction from the real problems. And the real problems are accurately gauged by the World Bank's COR (credibility of rules) measures. This measure looks at institutional stability, credibility and transparency. I am no fan of the WB, but the COR paradigm is extremely useful. Africa will not change until the COR improves. All the debt forgiveness can't change that. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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| TB...did you do you thesis before or after 2000? I seem to recall they had that "Year of Jubilee" or something that was a call to erase all 3rd world debt. From what I remember, quite a bit of it WAS forgiven. |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:37 am Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| TB...did you do you thesis before or after 2000? I seem to recall they had that "Year of Jubilee" or something that was a call to erase all 3rd world debt. From what I remember, quite a bit of it WAS forgiven. |
My thesis was on Laos, dams, and development, and the Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project in particular.
Actually the third world debt was just an opinion, I never studied that...but development is a debacle. Sorry, about confusion with my statement on third world debt. I should have separated those thoughts more - one I know a lot about (development), and one I know very little about (third world debt).
With development, you pretty much study throughout how messed up it is, and then if you choose to still go into it, you can make some serious coin, but you essentially become part of the problem. One of those real ironic types of things. The ideal situation is empowering people at the local levels, not giving tons of money to western governments or western NGOs to attempt to 'solve' their problems. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| ...but there are smaller organizations that work in tandem with locals non? |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| ...but there are smaller organizations that work in tandem with locals non? |
Those are good.
With the larger projects, you end up with tons of feasibility studies and money pumped in from all over...people driving all over in LandRovers or whatever, staying in the best hotels, consulting large western consultant firms on everything. All of that money has to come from somewhere, so usually its World Bank stuff, and World Bank is just one, there are countless other ones as well.
In somewhere like Laos, to have large dams in particular, which is what I was studying, they signed contracts to give all of the energy from the dams to be leased to Thailand for its energy for the next 50 years (can't recall exact time frame, but the idea is there). So people in Laos get nothing, but multitudes of people have to move elsewhere due to the large areas things like that effect, which means less good land for those types of people who were there, their fisheries change, the ecosystems are upset, and the people end up elsewhere competing with other people for the same resources.
These things like very large dams and hydropower electric projects also have limited lifespans. You need to update them and pump money into them, by the time Thailand's lease is up, Laos will probably need to do repairs, and borrow more money, and have to sign another lease, etc.
You keep multiplying things projects one after another, with more and more projects all over the place, and you end up with something like Africa. No one in Laos gains anything from it, they just lose more and more of their own resources, and lose more and more rights to what they had before.
If it was all just local stuff, it would be very good. But most of the time it has almost nothing to do with the locals there, and just massive consultant firms, large projects, again, CONSTRUCTION almost always comes in contracts again back to more western firms and engineers and such again.
The best way is the small NGOs who work with locals...microloans for locals to access money to self-empowerment, etc. I think that is the ideal model, but the big money that comes in, doesn't go to them, it goes to outside interests and those people in western countries who know how to get those contracts. |
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