The aid Industry: Is it the expedient tool of the New Colonialism?

[Jamster]

The aid Industry: Is it the expedient tool of the New Colonialism?

WardheerNews Editorial

August 12, 2006

 

European Christian missionaries and colonial legions, which invaded Africa, Asia and Latin America under the banner of spreading the gospel, fathered the current aid industry. Hence, the aid industry inherited the domineering, holier-than-thou attitude and paternalistic tradition of its ancestor.

 

More recently, in the 1980s, at the height of the cold war, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and Private voluntary Organizations (PVOs) become stronger at the expense of weakening states in many third world countries, and more so in Africa. What Governments used to do in the past was now within the sphere of influence of these organizations. Food rationing, healthcare and a host of services that had been in the hand of national governments in the past are now controlled and distributed by these aid agencies.

However, wastefulness, inefficiency corruption, lack of accountability and transparency become the hallmark of international aid agencies as much as they have been under national governments. Some studies have documented that as much as 60% or more of the aid dollar goes to expatriates. As a result, Aid industry proved to be neither the solution to widespread underdevelopment in disadvantaged developing countries or cost-effective therapy.

 

Historically, aid’s principal beneficiary has been none other than the monopolistic, incoherent and inherently corrupt and corrupting structure of the aid industry. Those who are “careerist compassionate class†of the aid agencies mandated for its management or mismanagement often manipulates international aid. Ironically enough, over the past half century aid has produced monsters galore; self-seeking coterie of sycophants and tottering bureaucrats whose usual bonanza of benefits include tax-free huge salaries, bonuses and perks.

 

In his popular book Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business (1989), Graham Hancock, a long time observer of the Horn of Africa region, has catalogued a long list of abuse and incompetence in the administration of international aid agencies. He aptly illustrated how international aid has indeed enlarged the coffers of the aid bureaucrats, while the plight of its intended beneficiaries continues to worsen.

 

“Garnered and justified in the name of the destitute and the vulnerable, aid's main function in the past half-century has been to create and then entrench a powerful new class of rich and privileged people." [Pp. 192-3]1

 

Currently, the aid industry constitutes over 100 western aid agencies and multitudes of offshoot cronies in the developing countries, which overlap with each other. Non-Government Organizations are neither completely altruistic nor apolitical. In Clashes of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington openly suggests to Western governments that these entities, plus World Bank and I.M.F. be utilized to further the goals of the West’s crusade against Islamic culture and/or against countries that refuse to kowtow to the West.

 

That is why many of aid agencies give religious conversion priority over aidâ€. Many others are using the fashionable NGO façade for political, religious and other ulterior motives.

 

The United Nations is beleaguered internally with unyielding bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. Over the past fifty years, the number of UN agencies proliferated exponentially. The mandates of many of the UN agencies overlap inherently. Plagued by political correctness and arcane machinations, empire-building has become the feature of its cumbersome bureaucratic bureaucracy. Hence, many of its deadwood pen pushers are “concerned about their personal benefits than the job they should be doingâ€.

 

Undressing the round-bellied plutocrats of the aid industry who marshal herd of sacred cows and debunking the myth of the benevolent international humanitarian system, Hancock shows no mercy in divulging facts.

 

"[A)t every level in the structure of almost all our most important aid-giving organizations, we have installed a tribe of highly paid men and women who are irredeemably out of touch with the day-to-day realities of the ... underdevelopment which they are supposed to be working to alleviate. The over-compensated aid bureaucrats demand -- and get -- a standard of living often far better than that which they could aspire to if they were working, for example, in industry or commerce in the home countries. At the same time, however, their achievements and performance are in no way subjected to the same exacting and competitive processes of evaluation that are considered normal in business. Precisely because their professional field is 'humanitarianism' rather than, say, 'sales', or 'production' or 'engineering', they are rarely required to demonstrate and validate their worth in quantitative, measurable ways. Surrounding themselves with the mystifying jargon of their trade, these lords of poverty are the druids of the modern era wielding enormous power that is accountable to no one." [pp.32-33]

 

The captains of the aid industry are known to rejoice at the occurrence of devastating calamities and afflictions of fellow human beings that could bring about lucrative jobs or serve to prolong often unproductive employment contracts.

 

Hancock further elucidates that "the ugly reality is that most poor people in most poor countries most of the time never receive or even make contact with aid in any tangible shape or form: whether it is present or absent, increased or decreased, are thus issues that are simply irrelevant to the ways is which they conduct their daily lives. After the multi-billion-dollar 'financial flows' involved have been shaken through the sieve of overpriced and irrelevant goods that must be bought in the donor countries, filtered again in the deep pockets of hundreds of thousands of foreign experts and aid agency staff, skimmed off by dishonest commission agents, and stolen by corrupt Ministers and Presidents, there is really very little left to go around. This little, furthermore, is then used thoughtlessly, or maliciously, or irresponsibly by those in power -- who have no mandate from the poor, who do not consult with them and who are utterly indifferent to their fate." [p.190]

 

The international media often prompts donor attention and compassion by depicting the shocking manifestation of human suffering in crisis situations. Numerous international humanitarian interventions commonly triggered by famished pictures selectively televised by the big cameras, have however failed to address the causes while in essence have contributed towards the partial alleviation of the resultant symptoms.

 

The compassion of the international community is often triggered by lean, emaciated and starving human beings distressed either by enormous natural calamities or by the sheer weight of human-made disasters, who are quite often displaced, dispossessed, traumatized and vulnerable.

 

Whether in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kosovo, Darfur or Indonesia, humanitarian interventions are naturally initiated with insufficient information, unreliable and inadequate data. At times, ground situations are distorted purposely or manipulated by the external intervener, its counterparts, host governments or the local interest groups. The manipulation of the aid assistance by a plethora of local and external players further compounds the complexity of the politics of the humanitarian aid.

 

Some times, the humanitarian intervention itself generates hostilities, invites violence and rivalry. Resource competition among the interest groups or the local contestants or factions becomes heightened. Access to humanitarian resources or lack of it either empowers or undercuts the influence of the local contestants.

 

Having had a well-timed photo opportunity with the needy and having made few brief field assessment visits, the all-knowing benevolent western aid “expert†would simply justify his/her feat in what would seem humane phraseology.

 

Playing God, the self-proclaimed messiah of the aid industry, thus mumbles over the gourmet food and wine with what would read like this verse.

 

Our task is clear, our purpose defined

Our vision broad, our thought deep-seated;

We are the angels of change.

Though our language indistinct

Clouded with nebulous jargons,

Bombastic and ambiguous terms,

We still understand the dialect of the masses.

Though from different class; noble and hefty,

Our heart bleeds for the poor,

We are beacons of hope.

With intellectual hegemony

We alleviate poverty with stroke of a pen;

Where there is despair, we bring hope.

Our project is people-oriented

We mix with the indigent

Venture the world of uncertainties

To issue the handouts

For the sake of the poor!

 

Our mission is short, our visit sharp

A perfect sightseeing excursion.

Our assessment brief and hurried

We are short of time . . .

Touched by sentiment

We are out to help.

Our voyeuristic urge, a tourist of a kind

Is all for the sake of the poor!

 

And, we can say that international aid is not about aiding the needy.