African aid: helpful or hazardous?
Criticism of foreign aid to Africa is growing in recent years.http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/african-aid-helpful-or-hazardous-0022175The current controversy over TOMS Shoes and Invisible Children's Kony 2012 viral video has once again reignited the heated debate over whether the structure of foreign aid to Africa does more harm than good.One study found that used-clothing imports cause a 40% decline in apparel production in Africa. According to aid critics, the unending stream of foreign money creates a situation where governments are not accountable to their citizens, forming what are essentially aid-based rentier states.
To proponents of aid, the solution is to fight for accountability and transparency to make aid serve its purpose, not to cut it off entirely.
In this episode of The Stream, we speak to TMS “Teddy” Ruge (@tmsruge), Co-Founder of Project Diaspora and Joel Charny, Vice President for Humanitarian Policy at InterAction (@interactionorg).
I don't like how they have a female PhD student answering emails/ google plus. and having 3 men answering the questions... being the authorities. seems a bit inappropriate, that PhD student should be on the panel too.
ReplyDeleteThis post relates to a viedo I saw recently:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k
The video is a parody of campaigns like Kony 2012 and Tom's Shoes, that always portray Africans as starving and in desperate need of help. By showing the entire continent in this manner, people always feel good after donating money, because it appears as if things cannot get any worse, so there is no way their support can be damaging. However, as your video shows, economies in Africa are already creating products and people are not completely destitute. It is a much more complex issue than that, yet media seems to consistently portray Africa in this one dimensional manner. I think many people forget about the profit that is made from the Aid industry, and even do not recognize it as an industry. Countless people make their living working for companies like Tom's Shoes, so what would happen if we just stopped all donations to developing countries? I'm not sure if my point is clear, but I'm trying to say that people in countries, like the U.S. are also dependent on international aid, not for the aid itself but for new jobs in aid distribution, implementation, research, and so on.
The youtube video I posted makes me think about the issue not just in terms of political economies, but in terms of human experience. After we watched "The Danger of a Single Story" I thought a lot about how we often choose the simplest versions of reality. Why is so absurd, even laughable, that someone in Africa would want to donate to a child in Norway? When you think about it, it's really not that strange. In reality, there are children freezing in Norway and people with considerable wealth in Africa, but we rarely hear those stories. Hopefully our blogging and reporting will help to widen the range of stories we have heard about people from around the world.
To Katie and Hannah,
ReplyDeleteI think that this debate is one that consumes us in GPP. Should we try to help, how should we help, and does our help make a difference? The issue of donating clothes to Africa is one that was brought up in my sophomore year of high school. When we give clothes away to GoodWill in America, the high quality ones stay in well off areas, the middle quality go into circulation in poorer communities in America, and the poor quality ones get shipped off to Africa.
We can see photos of African children playing in Hard Rock Cafe T-Shirts, who probably have no idea that it is a restaurant, let alone the significance of the collector's item. I have always viewed donating clothes as an issue because very few countries in sub-saharan africa have their own textile industries, because the imported used clothing is so cheap that their own industries cannot compete. However, I appreciate Kati's new perspective on the debate. Are these aid industries helping employ locals by getting them involved in the world trade of used clothing? Or are they destructive because they keep clothing from being produced in Africa?
I think I straddle the line between the two sides. I agree with Hannah in saying that "to proponents of aid, the solution is to fight for accountability and transparency to make aid serve its purpose, not to cut it off entirely." Therefore, the used clothing trade is not a horrible industry, it is just important that we understand how it affecting these nations, and give these nations the choice to participate in these trades, rather than assume that they want to.