Simply, those in developing countries rarely trust organisations to deliver what they need. Also, we unanimously agreed that trust is the most prevalent issue facing the implementation of Western aid. I'll look at why it is such an issue and how we can begin to resolve it.
Trust forms the basis of most relationships in aid, business and everyday life. If you look in the news today (that being the 25th August 2013) you'll notice an article focusing on Lord Sacks criticism of society. He states that when 'trust breaks down, you see institutions break down'. Well if we are having an issue in this Western and apparently 'developed' world it is not surprising that the developing world is thinking 'hold on, why are they telling me what to do? Our sense of community is stronger then theirs and maybe individualism just is not for us'.
So, firstly we can hardly preach down to developing countries when we are so guilty of different but still challenging issues.
In a different way I think our generation has become too fixated on the short term. The 'I want, I need this now' attitude then replaced the next day by wanting something different is atypical (I must add I'm not a saint on this issue I'm just as guilty as the next person).This issue of short-term projects affects aid in a similar way. These projects look great on paper, often are great in their implementation but as soon as the project finishes often people slowly return to their old way of life. Watch this video with Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, in which he explores this issue, the economy and you may infer that the shielding aspect of aid is devaluing individuals:
'There is bad aid and there is good aid. The bad aid is that one which creates dependencies, but good aid is that which is targeted to create capacities in people so that they are able to live on their own activities.'
Furthermore, focusing on food aid developing countries are starting to question why food aid is always offered at every turn. Why is the technology required to feed themselves held back? This is all to do with the developed world's strategic interests. If you read Chris Barrett and Dan Maxwell's book entitled Food Aid After Fifty Years: Recasting It's Role they argue that aid is:
- It is a donor-driven system
- It promotes domestic interests of donor countries
- It is a foreign policy tool
- International institutions are driven by exporters
- Development is not necessarily the objective
If these reasons are analysed alone then food aid seems to be solely for the benefit of Western powers. Of course there is food aid out there that is driven by a need to serve others and often it does save lives. It's just the dependency culture that it creates that I take issue with.
What can we do? It's simple. We should stop getting involved in economies where we stylise this as helping but in reality we are exploiting developing countries (Shell in the Niger delta comes to mind). Moreover, we should implement projects that encourage long-term aims and if the going gets tough we should stick it out. If we fail to control the issue of trust then in the future it will become much harder to get involved in the developing world. We need to be in it for the whole ride not just the way up and we need leave developing countries wanting more aid not being forced to receive it.
