Saturday, September 26, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Critics versus Apologists
Continuing the diatribe over the aid paradigm, I am reproducing below a response to Jeffrey Sachs by his colleauge William Easterly (Professor of Economics, New York University). It was published on The Huffington Time.
Sachs Ironies: Why Critics are Better for Foreign Aid than Apologists by William Easterly (May 25th, 2009)
Official foreign aid agencies delivering aid to Africa are used to operating with nobody holding them accountable for aid dollars actually reaching poor people. Now that establishment is running scared with the emergence of independent African voices critical of aid, such as that of Dambisa Moyo. Jeffrey Sachs, the world's leading apologist and fund-raiser for the aid establishment, has responded here with a ferocious personal attack on Moyo and myself, "Aid Ironies."
Allow me to defend myself (I'll let the formidable Moyo handle herself). It's not so much my pathetic need to correct slanders, as if anybody cared. Sachs' desperation shows when he peddles what I will show he knew were falsehoods. Besides, the sight of two middle-aged white men mud-wrestling on African aid may entertain the audience.
Sachs accuses me of such a hard heart as to deny "$10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net." Sachs offers: "Here are some of the most effective kinds of aid efforts: support for peasant farmers to help them grow more food, childhood vaccines... roads, .. safe drinking water...."
Sachs likes a lot more another writer whom he quoted in his book Common Wealth: "Put the focus back where it belongs: get the poorest people in the world such obvious goods as the vaccines,... the improved seeds, the fertilizer, the roads, the boreholes, the water pipes...." Wait, that was me!
Sachs was earlier quoting from my book, The White Man's Burden, which far from wanting to deny an African child bed nets, denounces the tragedy of aid impunity, in which "The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get four-dollar bed nets to poor families."
Sachs complained that "most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs -- the good and the bad -- into one big undifferentiated mass." Sachs again prefers another writer whom he quoted in Common Wealth: "Foreign aid likely contributed to some notable successes on a global scale, such as dramatic improvement in health and education indicators in poor countries."
You guessed it -- that was me again, illustrating how aid COULD work if only aid agencies were accountable for their actions.
Sachs denounces my callousness when I myself benefited from a government scholarship for grad school: "Easterly mentioned his receipt of NSF support in the same book in which he denounces aid," and now I am "trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind." Either this is an intentional falsehood or Sachs inexplicably failed to read the next paragraph in the book: "Could you give many more scholarships to poor students? ...Could you give the poor "aid vouchers" that they could spend on aid agency services of their choice?"
Sachs suffers from the same acute shortage of truthiness as did the Bush/Cheney administration, all of whom have contributed to the current climate of fear and intimidation in foreign aid. Any aid critic is immediately denounced as a heartless baby-killer, which protects the establishment from the accountability so badly needed to see aid reach the poor.
My colleagues and I at Aid Watch have documented in recent months such examples of aid impunity as:
a) USAID was caught red-handed by its own Inspector General mismanaging one multi-million project in Afghanistan so badly that millions disappeared without a trace, and among the few tangible outputs was a bridge, reported as "completed," that was so life-threatening that nobody could use it.
b) The World Bank's own evaluation unit criticized them for having only 2 percent of its communicable diseases projects focus on TB, despite the huge mortality from this disease and the availability of effective treatments. For good measure, the World Bank also cut nutritional projects in half, despite the huge benefits from cheap and effective nutritional supplements for children so malnourished that they will suffer permanent brain damage.
c) the World Health Organization faked malaria statistics to make false claims of victories against malaria in the New York Times. The WHO later withdrew and then contradicted the numbers, but never issued a public retraction. How to know when and where to fight malaria if the numbers are faked?
None of these organizations suffered any consequences for their misbehavior. Only poor people suffer the consequences, and they are powerless.
As an alternative to the impunity of the establishment that Sachs defends, the emergence of a new wave of independent aid critics in Africa is most welcome. This new wave includes many more besides the remarkable Dambisa Moyo -- such as the Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda and two extraordinary colleagues of mine at NYU: the Ghanaian economist Yaw Nyarko and the Beninese political scientist Leonard Wantchekon. Instead of Sachs' attempt to shout down critics with slanders and falsehoods, let's have a climate of open debate in which we learn from past mistakes, the guilty suffer, the good are rewarded, and we can hope that aid does start to reach the poor.
Sachs Ironies: Why Critics are Better for Foreign Aid than Apologists by William Easterly (May 25th, 2009)
Official foreign aid agencies delivering aid to Africa are used to operating with nobody holding them accountable for aid dollars actually reaching poor people. Now that establishment is running scared with the emergence of independent African voices critical of aid, such as that of Dambisa Moyo. Jeffrey Sachs, the world's leading apologist and fund-raiser for the aid establishment, has responded here with a ferocious personal attack on Moyo and myself, "Aid Ironies."
Allow me to defend myself (I'll let the formidable Moyo handle herself). It's not so much my pathetic need to correct slanders, as if anybody cared. Sachs' desperation shows when he peddles what I will show he knew were falsehoods. Besides, the sight of two middle-aged white men mud-wrestling on African aid may entertain the audience.
Sachs accuses me of such a hard heart as to deny "$10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net." Sachs offers: "Here are some of the most effective kinds of aid efforts: support for peasant farmers to help them grow more food, childhood vaccines... roads, .. safe drinking water...."
Sachs likes a lot more another writer whom he quoted in his book Common Wealth: "Put the focus back where it belongs: get the poorest people in the world such obvious goods as the vaccines,... the improved seeds, the fertilizer, the roads, the boreholes, the water pipes...." Wait, that was me!
Sachs was earlier quoting from my book, The White Man's Burden, which far from wanting to deny an African child bed nets, denounces the tragedy of aid impunity, in which "The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get four-dollar bed nets to poor families."
Sachs complained that "most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs -- the good and the bad -- into one big undifferentiated mass." Sachs again prefers another writer whom he quoted in Common Wealth: "Foreign aid likely contributed to some notable successes on a global scale, such as dramatic improvement in health and education indicators in poor countries."
You guessed it -- that was me again, illustrating how aid COULD work if only aid agencies were accountable for their actions.
Sachs denounces my callousness when I myself benefited from a government scholarship for grad school: "Easterly mentioned his receipt of NSF support in the same book in which he denounces aid," and now I am "trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind." Either this is an intentional falsehood or Sachs inexplicably failed to read the next paragraph in the book: "Could you give many more scholarships to poor students? ...Could you give the poor "aid vouchers" that they could spend on aid agency services of their choice?"
Sachs suffers from the same acute shortage of truthiness as did the Bush/Cheney administration, all of whom have contributed to the current climate of fear and intimidation in foreign aid. Any aid critic is immediately denounced as a heartless baby-killer, which protects the establishment from the accountability so badly needed to see aid reach the poor.
My colleagues and I at Aid Watch have documented in recent months such examples of aid impunity as:
a) USAID was caught red-handed by its own Inspector General mismanaging one multi-million project in Afghanistan so badly that millions disappeared without a trace, and among the few tangible outputs was a bridge, reported as "completed," that was so life-threatening that nobody could use it.
b) The World Bank's own evaluation unit criticized them for having only 2 percent of its communicable diseases projects focus on TB, despite the huge mortality from this disease and the availability of effective treatments. For good measure, the World Bank also cut nutritional projects in half, despite the huge benefits from cheap and effective nutritional supplements for children so malnourished that they will suffer permanent brain damage.
c) the World Health Organization faked malaria statistics to make false claims of victories against malaria in the New York Times. The WHO later withdrew and then contradicted the numbers, but never issued a public retraction. How to know when and where to fight malaria if the numbers are faked?
None of these organizations suffered any consequences for their misbehavior. Only poor people suffer the consequences, and they are powerless.
As an alternative to the impunity of the establishment that Sachs defends, the emergence of a new wave of independent aid critics in Africa is most welcome. This new wave includes many more besides the remarkable Dambisa Moyo -- such as the Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda and two extraordinary colleagues of mine at NYU: the Ghanaian economist Yaw Nyarko and the Beninese political scientist Leonard Wantchekon. Instead of Sachs' attempt to shout down critics with slanders and falsehoods, let's have a climate of open debate in which we learn from past mistakes, the guilty suffer, the good are rewarded, and we can hope that aid does start to reach the poor.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
The Debate on the Aid Paradigm Continues
The Huffington Post published on May 26th a response to Sachs' article by Dambisa Moyo (Zambian economist and author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How there is a Better Way for Africa).
Aid Ironies: A Response to Jeffrey Sachs by Dambisa Moyo (May 26th, 2009)
Ahead of the publication of my book Dead Aid, an author friend of mine cautioned me about responding to opponents who found it necessary to color their criticism with personal attacks. This, he argued, is a tried and tested way of side-stepping the issues and providing a smoke screen when faced with a valid argument.
Jeffrey Sachs's latest posting is just the latest example of using this tactic to obfuscate the facts and avoid addressing the fundamental issues regarding aid's manifest failure to deliver on its promise of generating growth and alleviating poverty in Africa.
And though I am responding here in order to refute his arguments, as a fellow economist, I intend to rely on logic and evidence to make my argument and show Mr. Sachs the professional courtesy that he has failed to show to me.
Development is not that hard. We now have over 300 years of evidence of what works (and what doesn't) in increasing growth, alleviating poverty and suffering. For example, we know that countries that finance development and create jobs through trade and encouraging foreign (and domestic) investment thrive.
We also know that there is no country -- anywhere in the world -- that has meaningfully reduced poverty and spurred significant and sustainable levels of economic growth by relying on aid. If anything, history has shown us that by encouraging corruption, creating dependency, fueling inflation, creating debt burdens and disenfranchising Africans (to name a few), an aid-based strategy hurts more that it helps.
It is true that interventions such as the Marshall plan in Europe and the Green Revolution in India played vital roles in economic (re)construction. However, the key and (often ignored) difference between such aid interventions and those plaguing Africa today is that the former were short, sharp and finite, whereas the latter are open-ended commitments with no end in sight. The problem with an open-ended system is, of course, that African governments have no incentive to look for other, better, ways of financing their development.
Mr Sachs knows this; how do I know? He taught me while I was studying at Harvard, during which he propounded the view that the path to long-term development would only be achieved through private sector involvement and free market solutions.
Perhaps what I had not gleaned at that time was that Mr. Sachs' development approach was made for countries such as Russia, Poland and Bolivia, whereas the aid- dependency approach, with no accompanying job creation, was reserved for Africa.
Mr. Sachs chooses to ignore that relying on aid at a time when the United States is facing 10 percent unemployment rate and Germany (another leading donor) could contract by as much as 6 percent, is a fool hardy strategy. The aid interventions that Mr. Sachs lauds as evidence of success are merely band aid solutions that do nothing to lift Africa out of the mire -- leaving the continent alive but half drowning, still unable to climb out on its own.
Yes an aid-funded scholarship will send a girl to school, but we ought not to delude ourselves that such largesse will make her country grow at the requisite growth rates to meaningfully put a dent in poverty. No surprise, then, that Africa is on the whole worse off today than it was 40 years ago. For example in the 1970's less that 10 percent of Africa's population lived in dire poverty -- today over 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than US$2 a day.
There is a more fundamental point -- what kind of African society are we building when virtually all public goods -- education, healthcare, infrastructure and even security -- are paid for by Western taxpayers? Under the all encompassing aid system too many places in Africa continue to flounder under inept, corrupt and despotic regimes, who spend their time courting and catering to the demands of the army of aid organizations.
Like everywhere else, Africans have the political leadership that we have paid for. Thanks to aid, a distressing number of African leaders care little about what their citizens want or need -- after all it's the reverse of the Boston tea-party -- no representation without taxation.
In conclusion let me respond to four of Mr. Sachs' specific points:
1) Regarding Rwanda: It is absolutely true that Rwanda depends on substantial amounts of foreign aid. The point is that President Paul Kagame is working tirelessly to wean his county off of aid dependency (which is precisely the approach to exiting aid that I have been arguing for). To focus on the point that Rwanda relies on aid is to miss the more interesting point: Here in a country where over 70 percent of the government budget is aid supported, the leadership is pushing for less, not more aid -- what is it Mr. Sachs that President Kagame sees that you do not see? Let's face it, the leadership could guilt-trip us all into giving it even more aid after the international community turned its back on the country at its time of need during the 1994 genocide, yet it does not.
2) Mr. Sachs claims that I, alongside the compassionate Bill Easterly, lump all kinds of [aid] programs in one undifferentiated mass. I would point Mr. Sachs to page 7 of my book which explicitly makes a delineation between different types of aid.
3) Regarding the "countless" examples in which countries have benefited from aid then graduated: Here I would point Mr. Sachs to page 37 of my book to a discussion of these countries; The difference again with these success stories is that they did not rely on aid to the degree and length that African countries do today. Moreover, they very quickly adopted the market-based, job-creating strategies outlined in my book, for which Mr. Sachs seems to have an apparent aversion, in favour of the status quo.
4) Finally, with respect to Mr. Sachs' remark that I would see nothing wrong with denying US$10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malarial bed net -- even labeling me as cruel; I say, if working towards a sustainable solution where Africans can make their own anti-malaria bed-nets (thereby creating jobs for Africans and a real chance for continents economic prospects) rather than encouraging all and sundry to dump malaria nets across the continent (which incidentally, put Africans out of business), then I am guilty as charged. Don't forget that the over 60 percent of Africans that are under the age of 24 need jobs not sympathy.
As a final plea, I urge Mr. Sachs to heed the words of his former boss, Mr. Kofi Annan when he says "The determination of Africans, and genuine partnership between Africa and the rest of the world, is the basis for growth and development."
Aid Ironies: A Response to Jeffrey Sachs by Dambisa Moyo (May 26th, 2009)
Ahead of the publication of my book Dead Aid, an author friend of mine cautioned me about responding to opponents who found it necessary to color their criticism with personal attacks. This, he argued, is a tried and tested way of side-stepping the issues and providing a smoke screen when faced with a valid argument.
Jeffrey Sachs's latest posting is just the latest example of using this tactic to obfuscate the facts and avoid addressing the fundamental issues regarding aid's manifest failure to deliver on its promise of generating growth and alleviating poverty in Africa.
And though I am responding here in order to refute his arguments, as a fellow economist, I intend to rely on logic and evidence to make my argument and show Mr. Sachs the professional courtesy that he has failed to show to me.
Development is not that hard. We now have over 300 years of evidence of what works (and what doesn't) in increasing growth, alleviating poverty and suffering. For example, we know that countries that finance development and create jobs through trade and encouraging foreign (and domestic) investment thrive.
We also know that there is no country -- anywhere in the world -- that has meaningfully reduced poverty and spurred significant and sustainable levels of economic growth by relying on aid. If anything, history has shown us that by encouraging corruption, creating dependency, fueling inflation, creating debt burdens and disenfranchising Africans (to name a few), an aid-based strategy hurts more that it helps.
It is true that interventions such as the Marshall plan in Europe and the Green Revolution in India played vital roles in economic (re)construction. However, the key and (often ignored) difference between such aid interventions and those plaguing Africa today is that the former were short, sharp and finite, whereas the latter are open-ended commitments with no end in sight. The problem with an open-ended system is, of course, that African governments have no incentive to look for other, better, ways of financing their development.
Mr Sachs knows this; how do I know? He taught me while I was studying at Harvard, during which he propounded the view that the path to long-term development would only be achieved through private sector involvement and free market solutions.
Perhaps what I had not gleaned at that time was that Mr. Sachs' development approach was made for countries such as Russia, Poland and Bolivia, whereas the aid- dependency approach, with no accompanying job creation, was reserved for Africa.
Mr. Sachs chooses to ignore that relying on aid at a time when the United States is facing 10 percent unemployment rate and Germany (another leading donor) could contract by as much as 6 percent, is a fool hardy strategy. The aid interventions that Mr. Sachs lauds as evidence of success are merely band aid solutions that do nothing to lift Africa out of the mire -- leaving the continent alive but half drowning, still unable to climb out on its own.
Yes an aid-funded scholarship will send a girl to school, but we ought not to delude ourselves that such largesse will make her country grow at the requisite growth rates to meaningfully put a dent in poverty. No surprise, then, that Africa is on the whole worse off today than it was 40 years ago. For example in the 1970's less that 10 percent of Africa's population lived in dire poverty -- today over 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than US$2 a day.
There is a more fundamental point -- what kind of African society are we building when virtually all public goods -- education, healthcare, infrastructure and even security -- are paid for by Western taxpayers? Under the all encompassing aid system too many places in Africa continue to flounder under inept, corrupt and despotic regimes, who spend their time courting and catering to the demands of the army of aid organizations.
Like everywhere else, Africans have the political leadership that we have paid for. Thanks to aid, a distressing number of African leaders care little about what their citizens want or need -- after all it's the reverse of the Boston tea-party -- no representation without taxation.
In conclusion let me respond to four of Mr. Sachs' specific points:
1) Regarding Rwanda: It is absolutely true that Rwanda depends on substantial amounts of foreign aid. The point is that President Paul Kagame is working tirelessly to wean his county off of aid dependency (which is precisely the approach to exiting aid that I have been arguing for). To focus on the point that Rwanda relies on aid is to miss the more interesting point: Here in a country where over 70 percent of the government budget is aid supported, the leadership is pushing for less, not more aid -- what is it Mr. Sachs that President Kagame sees that you do not see? Let's face it, the leadership could guilt-trip us all into giving it even more aid after the international community turned its back on the country at its time of need during the 1994 genocide, yet it does not.
2) Mr. Sachs claims that I, alongside the compassionate Bill Easterly, lump all kinds of [aid] programs in one undifferentiated mass. I would point Mr. Sachs to page 7 of my book which explicitly makes a delineation between different types of aid.
3) Regarding the "countless" examples in which countries have benefited from aid then graduated: Here I would point Mr. Sachs to page 37 of my book to a discussion of these countries; The difference again with these success stories is that they did not rely on aid to the degree and length that African countries do today. Moreover, they very quickly adopted the market-based, job-creating strategies outlined in my book, for which Mr. Sachs seems to have an apparent aversion, in favour of the status quo.
4) Finally, with respect to Mr. Sachs' remark that I would see nothing wrong with denying US$10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malarial bed net -- even labeling me as cruel; I say, if working towards a sustainable solution where Africans can make their own anti-malaria bed-nets (thereby creating jobs for Africans and a real chance for continents economic prospects) rather than encouraging all and sundry to dump malaria nets across the continent (which incidentally, put Africans out of business), then I am guilty as charged. Don't forget that the over 60 percent of Africans that are under the age of 24 need jobs not sympathy.
As a final plea, I urge Mr. Sachs to heed the words of his former boss, Mr. Kofi Annan when he says "The determination of Africans, and genuine partnership between Africa and the rest of the world, is the basis for growth and development."
Debating an Established and Crystallized Paradigm
Maintaining a critical stance on our actions focuses us on the values and principles that that drive them. Reflecting on our practice helps us to see if what we do reaches the intended outcome. And if that is not the case, new understandings will lead to new actions.
I believe it is even more so, when we are engaged in socio-economic development issues. Lately, the debate around the meaning and effectiveness of the traditional aid paradigm has revived again.
Below I am reporting an article published by Jeffrey Sachs (Director of the Earth Institute, Economics Professor, Columbia University) and published by The Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com).
In the next few entries of this blog I will follow this debate.
Aid Ironies by Jeffrey Sachs (May 24th, 2009)
The debate about foreign aid has become farcical. The big opponents of aid today are Dambisa Moyo, an African-born economist who reportedly received scholarships so that she could go to Harvard and Oxford but sees nothing wrong with denying $10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net. Her colleague in opposing aid, Bill Easterly, received large-scale government support from the National Science Foundation for his own graduate training.
I certainly don't begrudge any of them the help that they got. Far from it. I believe in this kind of help. And I'd find Moyo's views cruel and mistaken even she did not get the scholarships that have been reported (Easterly mentioned his receipt of NSF support in the same book in which he denounces aid). I begrudge them trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind. Before peddling their simplistic concoction of free markets and self-help, they and we should think about the realities of life, in which all of us need help at some time or other and in countless ways, and even more importantly we should think about the life-and-death consequences for impoverished people who are denied that help.
Nine million children die each year of extreme poverty and disease conditions which are almost all preventable or treatable or both. Impoverished countries, with impoverished governments, can't solve these problems on their own. Yet with help they can. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunizations are both saving lives by the millions, and at remarkably low cost. Goldman Sachs, Ms. Moyo's former employer, gives out more in annual bonuses to its workers than the entire rich world gives to the Global Fund each year to help save the lives of poor children. And when Goldman Sachs got into financial trouble it got bailed-out by the US Government. Rich people have an uncanny ability to oppose aid for everybody but themselves.
Recently Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times praising Moyo's fresh thinking. This is extraordinary. His government has depended on aid for more than a decade. Nearly half the budget revenues currently come from aid. Rwanda currently imports around $800 million of merchandise each year, but only earns $250 million or so in exports. So how does it do it? Aid, of course, helped to pay for around $450 million of the imports. Without foreign aid, Rwanda's pathbreaking public health successes and strong current economic growth would collapse. Kagame's op-ed did not help FT readers to understand this.
Americans are predisposed to like the anti-aid message. They believe that the poor have only themselves (or perhaps their governments) to blame. They overestimate the actual aid from the US by around thirty times, so they imagine that vast sums are flowing to Africa that are then squandered. Many believe, typically in private, that by saving African children we would be creating a population explosion, so better to let the kids die now rather than grow up hungry. (I'm asked about this constantly, usually in whispers, after lectures). They don't understand the most basic point of worldwide experience: when children survive rather than die in large numbers, households choose to have many fewer children, in fact more than compensating for the decline in child mortality. Africa's high child mortality is ironically a core reason why Africa's population is continuing to soar rather than stabilize as in other parts of the world.
Of course, most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs - the good and the bad - into one big undifferentiated mass, rather than helping people to understand what is working and how it can be expanded, and what is not working, and should therefore be cut back. Nor do Americans hear that many poor countries graduate from the need for aid over time, precisely because aid programs help to spur economic growth and successfully prepare countries to tackle future priorities. US aid to India for increased food production in the 1960s paved the way for India's growth takeoff afterwards. There are countless other examples in which countries have benefited from aid and then graduated, including Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel, and others. Egypt is on that path today, and Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, and others will be as well if both donors and recipients carry forward with a sensible assistance strategies.
Here are some of the most effective kinds of aid efforts: support for peasant farmers to help them grow more food, childhood vaccines, malaria control with bed nets and medicines, de-worming, mid-day school meals, training and salaries for community health workers, all-weather roads, electricity supplies, safe drinking water, treadle pumps for small-scale irrigation, directly observed therapy for tuberculosis, antiretroviral medicines for AIDS sufferers, clean low-cost cook stoves to prevent respiratory disease of young children. Shipment of food from the US is a kind of aid that should be cut back, with more attention on growing local food in Africa.
Out of every $100 of US national income, our government currently provides the grand sum of 5 cents in aid to all of Africa. Out of that same $100, we have found around $10 for the stimulus package and bank bailouts and another $5 for the military. It is not wonderful that what has caught the public's eye are proposals to cut today's 5 cents to 4 or 3 cents or perhaps zero.
I believe it is even more so, when we are engaged in socio-economic development issues. Lately, the debate around the meaning and effectiveness of the traditional aid paradigm has revived again.
Below I am reporting an article published by Jeffrey Sachs (Director of the Earth Institute, Economics Professor, Columbia University) and published by The Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com).
In the next few entries of this blog I will follow this debate.
Aid Ironies by Jeffrey Sachs (May 24th, 2009)
The debate about foreign aid has become farcical. The big opponents of aid today are Dambisa Moyo, an African-born economist who reportedly received scholarships so that she could go to Harvard and Oxford but sees nothing wrong with denying $10 in aid to an African child for an anti-malaria bed net. Her colleague in opposing aid, Bill Easterly, received large-scale government support from the National Science Foundation for his own graduate training.
I certainly don't begrudge any of them the help that they got. Far from it. I believe in this kind of help. And I'd find Moyo's views cruel and mistaken even she did not get the scholarships that have been reported (Easterly mentioned his receipt of NSF support in the same book in which he denounces aid). I begrudge them trying to pull up the ladder for those still left behind. Before peddling their simplistic concoction of free markets and self-help, they and we should think about the realities of life, in which all of us need help at some time or other and in countless ways, and even more importantly we should think about the life-and-death consequences for impoverished people who are denied that help.
Nine million children die each year of extreme poverty and disease conditions which are almost all preventable or treatable or both. Impoverished countries, with impoverished governments, can't solve these problems on their own. Yet with help they can. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunizations are both saving lives by the millions, and at remarkably low cost. Goldman Sachs, Ms. Moyo's former employer, gives out more in annual bonuses to its workers than the entire rich world gives to the Global Fund each year to help save the lives of poor children. And when Goldman Sachs got into financial trouble it got bailed-out by the US Government. Rich people have an uncanny ability to oppose aid for everybody but themselves.
Recently Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times praising Moyo's fresh thinking. This is extraordinary. His government has depended on aid for more than a decade. Nearly half the budget revenues currently come from aid. Rwanda currently imports around $800 million of merchandise each year, but only earns $250 million or so in exports. So how does it do it? Aid, of course, helped to pay for around $450 million of the imports. Without foreign aid, Rwanda's pathbreaking public health successes and strong current economic growth would collapse. Kagame's op-ed did not help FT readers to understand this.
Americans are predisposed to like the anti-aid message. They believe that the poor have only themselves (or perhaps their governments) to blame. They overestimate the actual aid from the US by around thirty times, so they imagine that vast sums are flowing to Africa that are then squandered. Many believe, typically in private, that by saving African children we would be creating a population explosion, so better to let the kids die now rather than grow up hungry. (I'm asked about this constantly, usually in whispers, after lectures). They don't understand the most basic point of worldwide experience: when children survive rather than die in large numbers, households choose to have many fewer children, in fact more than compensating for the decline in child mortality. Africa's high child mortality is ironically a core reason why Africa's population is continuing to soar rather than stabilize as in other parts of the world.
Of course, most Americans know little about the many crucially successful aid efforts, because Moyo, Easterly, and others lump all kinds of programs - the good and the bad - into one big undifferentiated mass, rather than helping people to understand what is working and how it can be expanded, and what is not working, and should therefore be cut back. Nor do Americans hear that many poor countries graduate from the need for aid over time, precisely because aid programs help to spur economic growth and successfully prepare countries to tackle future priorities. US aid to India for increased food production in the 1960s paved the way for India's growth takeoff afterwards. There are countless other examples in which countries have benefited from aid and then graduated, including Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Israel, and others. Egypt is on that path today, and Rwanda, Tanzania, Ghana, and others will be as well if both donors and recipients carry forward with a sensible assistance strategies.
Here are some of the most effective kinds of aid efforts: support for peasant farmers to help them grow more food, childhood vaccines, malaria control with bed nets and medicines, de-worming, mid-day school meals, training and salaries for community health workers, all-weather roads, electricity supplies, safe drinking water, treadle pumps for small-scale irrigation, directly observed therapy for tuberculosis, antiretroviral medicines for AIDS sufferers, clean low-cost cook stoves to prevent respiratory disease of young children. Shipment of food from the US is a kind of aid that should be cut back, with more attention on growing local food in Africa.
Out of every $100 of US national income, our government currently provides the grand sum of 5 cents in aid to all of Africa. Out of that same $100, we have found around $10 for the stimulus package and bank bailouts and another $5 for the military. It is not wonderful that what has caught the public's eye are proposals to cut today's 5 cents to 4 or 3 cents or perhaps zero.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Questioning Builds A Way
In the recent past, I have been increasingly interested in exploring alternative models to initiate, trigger, promote self-sustaining socio-economic change.
Sometimes, I feel that, in the world of international non-governmental and multilateral organizations, we have become so established in our own ways that we may be lacking a sense of self-critique. Some refer to us as being an industry; an industry that may be sustaining itself, having become its own raison d'être.
When engaging in a discourse on development and its practices, one quickly realizes how social and economic change dwells at the intersection of different domains: i.e., availability (or lack of) external opportunities and resources; communal histories, traditions and customs; and most importantly the personal conviction that change is innate and individuals could become something different from what they are at the present time. In other words, we partake in a historical process of co-creation.
Sometimes, I feel that, in the world of international non-governmental and multilateral organizations, we have become so established in our own ways that we may be lacking a sense of self-critique. Some refer to us as being an industry; an industry that may be sustaining itself, having become its own raison d'être.
When engaging in a discourse on development and its practices, one quickly realizes how social and economic change dwells at the intersection of different domains: i.e., availability (or lack of) external opportunities and resources; communal histories, traditions and customs; and most importantly the personal conviction that change is innate and individuals could become something different from what they are at the present time. In other words, we partake in a historical process of co-creation.
We are incarnate beings, after all. We belong to history (and traditions) before history belongs to us. And that is the platform on which we exist and relate to each other. This is our window into the world. Yet, our needed finitude (in whatever form and shape it may manifest itself) does not completely and permanently define who we are (our being and aspirations) and what we do (our actions).
Ultimately, the question that I am entertaining lately is whether the established paradigm for international development, as practiced by most INGOs and Multilateral Organizations (i.e., the World Bank and its sister organizations, the United Nation constellation, etc.) provides an efficient and cost-effective platform to trigger and support long-term local change.
In the previous entry on this blog, I shared an insightful article from the Financial Times that suggested the need to perhaps ground social change in individual entrepreneurship, which is, in turn, the manifestation of personal agency.
This opens the door to a current and different domain of practices (which I will discuss and analyze further in subsequent postings) referred to as social entrepreneurship. For the time being, I would like to simply set the ground of this future conversation, by defining the terms and concepts.
Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of individual and societal change.
While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors. The main aim of a social entrepreneurship as well as social enterprise is to further social and environmental goals. Although social entrepreneurs are often non-profits, this need not be incompatible with making a profit. Social enterprises are for ‘more-than-profit,’ using blended value business models that combine a revenue-generating business with a social-value-generating structure or component.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Re-Examining the International-Non-Profit Model
There is an ever increasing questioning of the traditional models of development. While not all favor the pure profit approach, many argue that there is a greater role for regulated market-based approaches to global problems. If such models prevail, the question for big INGOs and international public sector institutions is how to fit into the new development landscape.
I am proposeing below a very compelling article on this topic by Sarah Murray published on the the Financial Times on May 28, 2009.
I am proposeing below a very compelling article on this topic by Sarah Murray published on the the Financial Times on May 28, 2009.
Enterprise introduces a whiff of revolution
By Sarah Murray
Published: May 27 2009
In her book Dead Aid,* Dambisa Moyo calls for the end of aid to Africa within five years. Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda – which has halved aid as a percentage of its gross domestic product in the past decade – recently argued in the Financial Times that aid creates instability and dependency while failing to reduce poverty or disease.
Ms Moyo and Mr Kagame are among those questioning traditional models of development. While not all favour the pure for-profit approach, many argue that there is a greater role for market-based approaches to global problems. If such models prevail, the question for big non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international public sector institutions is how to fit into the new development landscape.
The prospect of long-established institutions such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) simply disappearing seems remote. And certainly, the idea of ending aid to Africa in five years is an ambitious one.
The global downturn has shown that multilateral institutions remain critical, particularly in a crisis, when they have the ability to direct massive funding flows to not only the developing world but also to mature countries. Iceland, for example, has recently been forced to accept a $10bn bail-out led by the IMF.
Nevertheless, moving rapidly into the donor agencies’ sphere is a group with very different modes of operation. They include social entrepreneurs, NGOs using market-based models and large non-profits such as the Gates Foundation. Multinationals are also recognising that they can help foster economic development while turning a profit.
Some organisations are using innovative approaches: in India, a pay-per-use model is how the Byrraju Foundation is delivering clean water to 850,000 people in the state of Andhra Pradesh. If 500 households buy one 12-litre container of water per day, the filtration plants cover their costs, according to a study by Monitor Group, a US consultancy.**
Meanwhile, multinational businesses are joining the battle against poverty and disease. Companies such as Exxon Mobil have become significant forces in combating malaria while in India, Hindustan Unilever’s Shakti programme expands both rural incomes and its market penetration by training village women to distribute its products.
“Business and society have to go through this utterly profound management transformation to move away from a few people running everyone else,” says Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka the pioneering social entrepreneurship non-profit. “Because that model can’t function in a world with rapid change coming from all directions.”
In contrast to the more nimble social entrepreneurs, organisations such as the World Bank and the UN can seem lumbering and out of touch. Some believe this stems from outdated management processes and sprawling bureaucratic structures.
A report*** from the Low Level Panel – a network of volunteers working for UN reform – found that a whistleblower policy for UN Secretariat staff reporting irregularities took more than 16 months to agree, even though the Secretary-General described it as high priority.
The report highlights other problems. “We were told that new administrative staff wishing to join the United Nations Development Programme must demonstrate their prowess on a typewriter, and complete tests in manual arithmetic,” write the authors.
Others point to a lack of entrepreneurial culture within some institutions. “There is a danger that all innovation in the field is coming from outside the traditional donor agencies,” says Raj Kumar, president of Devex, a recruitment and business information service for the international development community. “People feel constrained and unwilling to develop new ideas or new projects.”
Gavin Power, deputy director of the Global Compact, the UN’s corporate citizenship network, argues that part of the problem is the highly-centralised management of many institutions. “Too often the large multilaterals have top-down approaches and have designed things in New York or Washington DC,” he says. “The shift needs to be towards more locally designed solutions.
There is evidence that this is happening. The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, is re-shaping the “colonial model” Dorothy Berry, the IFC’s head of human resources, says governed the institution in the past. “That is an outmoded concept,” she says. “The challenging but really exciting part is how we remain an agile flexible organisation that can support our clients in a rapidly changing environment.
“To do so, the IFC has been stepping up recruitment efforts within client countries by, for example, targeting business-school graduates in countries such as India and China. “We are making a big attempt to become a truly global organisation – rather than one that is Washington-centric with outposts in different countries,” says Ms Berry.
Some institutions are also recognising their potential convening role in market-led initiatives. This is something the United Nations Development Programme is doing through its Growing Sustainable Business initiative. The idea behind the GSB is that the UNDP can broker partnerships between companies and NGOs or local government agencies to accelerate the provision of goods, services and employment in poor countries.
In Africa, one of the GSB partnerships – between Unilever, the consumer products group, and social and environmental institutions – is developing the Allanblackia tree into a new crop that will be a supplementary source of oil for Unilever products as well as an additional income stream for farmers who have traditionally relied on cocoa.
Meanwhile, the World Bank, through its Development Marketplace, is promoting social enterprise through a competitive grant programme that funds early-stage projects with the potential for development impact. It is seeking proposals, for example, from organisations in South Asia to help deliver nutrition to pregnant women, babies and children under the age of two.
However, Mr Kumar argues that global public sector organisations need to integrate this kind of approach into the way they operate. “[Development Marketplace] is one of a few examples,” he says. “And it seems to be a separate entity from the rest of the bank instead of mainstreaming that culture in every operation of the bank.”
Mr Kumar suggests that donor agencies could give local units access to relatively small sums of money to develop innovative pilot projects in partnership with social entrepreneurs or non-profits. “They should have the ability to write a cheque for $50,000 without going through 10 audit committees,” he says.
Creating “teams of teams” within large organisations Mr Drayton sees as one way forward for multilateral institutions. “The team is either a success or failure,” he says. “But if it succeeds, the people on it are then on a career path, running project teams as opposed to trying to run a 19th century repetitive function bureaucracy – the world doesn’t work that way any more.”
*‘Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa’, Dambisa Moyo, Allen Lane, January 2009
**Emerging Markets, Emerging Models: Monitor Group, March 2009
***Low Level Panel: Practical steps to a more effective and efficient United Nations
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Effective Development Needs to Enter Existential Sphere
The discourse and practices around sustainable development cannot be limited to the boundaries of neo-classical economics or the promises of technological transfer. To make individual and communal development effective and complete, we need to enter the sphere of existential meaning and belief systems.
If the work in development were to be stripped of any reference or space for existential reflection on one's belonging to a communal experience, history, culture, tradition and ultimately beliefs and ethics, it would deny the transcendental and ethical dimension of human experience and, consequently, loose its grounding.
Debates around the need to refound the economic and financial foundations of society have mushroomed lately, sparked, perhaps, by the devastating flaws of the current systems and principles.
I am reporting below on a debate that caught my attention. It was first published by the Italian scholar and journalist Sandro Magister on June 6, 2009 (http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it).
The scholar Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, in a pivotal 1967 essay, presented what was later called the Böckenförde paradox: the thesis according to which "the secularized liberal state lives by presuppositions that it cannot guarantee."
On January 19, 2004, then-cardinal Raztinger and philosopher Jürgen Habermas used this thesis as the starting point for a debate in Munich on the theme "Ethics, religion, and the liberal state."
So, in an article for Süddeutsche Zeitung, also published in Italy in May 2009 by the journal Il Regno, Böckenförde applied his paradox to capitalism as well, but in much more devastating terms.
In his judgment, the principles on which the capitalist economic system is founded can no longer stand. Its current collapse is definitive, and has revealed the inhuman foundations of this system. The economy must therefore be rebuilt from the ground up, not on principles of egoism, but of solidarity. It is up to the states, and European countries in the first place, to take control of the economy. And it is up to the Church, with its social doctrine, to accept the testimony of Marxism, who saw correctly.
Böckenförde's anticapitalist "manifesto" brought reaction, in Italy, from some prominent economists such as Luigi Campiglio, vice president of the Catholic University of Milan; Dario Antiseri, a philosopher and follower of the liberal economic school of Vienna; Flavio Felice, a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University and president of the Tocqueville-Acton study center; Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a banker and economic commentator for L'Osservatore Romano.
In particular, Antiseri objects that "restoring Marx today is like continuing to be Ptolemaic after Copernicus and Newton"; that "individualism is the opposite of collectivism, not of solidarism, and this is possible only if there is the creation of wealth to be shared, as takes place in capitalist societies"; and finally that Benedict XVI cannot be expected to distance himself from "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II and from "Rerum Novarum" by Leo XII, with its "lucid and impassioned defense of private property."
Flavio Felice contests Böckenförde's unrealistic vision of an "angelic economy" as an alternative to a capitalism that is identified with pure lust for gain. And regarding the salvific control of the state over the economy, he points out that the encyclical "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II, in paragraph 25, warns against precisely this danger: "When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a 'secular religion' which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world."
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi observes that Böckenförde lashes out against a capitalism of Protestant origin, dominated by man's egoism and inability to do good. But he does not realize that there is a capitalism in keeping with Catholic doctrine, which the popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II have denounced for its errors while appreciating its basic validity, linked to private property and freedom of investment and commerce.
In an article in Il Sole 24 Ore – Europe's most widely circulated financial newspaper – Gotti Tedeschi maintained that the current global turbulence does not arise from excessive greed or the lack of rules. These have aggravated the crisis, but did not cause it. The real cause was the reduction of the birth rate, and therefore of the human capital that alone was capable of ensuring the necessary growth in production.
The frontal attack that Böckenförde brings against capitalism must in any case come to terms with the answer that "Centesimus Annus," in paragraph 42, gives to the question of whether capitalism is a system that corresponds to "true economic and civil progress."
The answer of the encyclical is the following:
"If by 'capitalism' is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy or simply free economy."
In his article, the German scholar asks the social doctrine of the Church to awaken from its "Sleeping Beauty slumber" and apply itself to a "radical refutation" of capitalism, made obligatory by its current "evident collapse."
If the work in development were to be stripped of any reference or space for existential reflection on one's belonging to a communal experience, history, culture, tradition and ultimately beliefs and ethics, it would deny the transcendental and ethical dimension of human experience and, consequently, loose its grounding.
Debates around the need to refound the economic and financial foundations of society have mushroomed lately, sparked, perhaps, by the devastating flaws of the current systems and principles.
I am reporting below on a debate that caught my attention. It was first published by the Italian scholar and journalist Sandro Magister on June 6, 2009 (http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it).
The scholar Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, in a pivotal 1967 essay, presented what was later called the Böckenförde paradox: the thesis according to which "the secularized liberal state lives by presuppositions that it cannot guarantee."
On January 19, 2004, then-cardinal Raztinger and philosopher Jürgen Habermas used this thesis as the starting point for a debate in Munich on the theme "Ethics, religion, and the liberal state."
So, in an article for Süddeutsche Zeitung, also published in Italy in May 2009 by the journal Il Regno, Böckenförde applied his paradox to capitalism as well, but in much more devastating terms.
In his judgment, the principles on which the capitalist economic system is founded can no longer stand. Its current collapse is definitive, and has revealed the inhuman foundations of this system. The economy must therefore be rebuilt from the ground up, not on principles of egoism, but of solidarity. It is up to the states, and European countries in the first place, to take control of the economy. And it is up to the Church, with its social doctrine, to accept the testimony of Marxism, who saw correctly.
Böckenförde's anticapitalist "manifesto" brought reaction, in Italy, from some prominent economists such as Luigi Campiglio, vice president of the Catholic University of Milan; Dario Antiseri, a philosopher and follower of the liberal economic school of Vienna; Flavio Felice, a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University and president of the Tocqueville-Acton study center; Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a banker and economic commentator for L'Osservatore Romano.
In particular, Antiseri objects that "restoring Marx today is like continuing to be Ptolemaic after Copernicus and Newton"; that "individualism is the opposite of collectivism, not of solidarism, and this is possible only if there is the creation of wealth to be shared, as takes place in capitalist societies"; and finally that Benedict XVI cannot be expected to distance himself from "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II and from "Rerum Novarum" by Leo XII, with its "lucid and impassioned defense of private property."
Flavio Felice contests Böckenförde's unrealistic vision of an "angelic economy" as an alternative to a capitalism that is identified with pure lust for gain. And regarding the salvific control of the state over the economy, he points out that the encyclical "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II, in paragraph 25, warns against precisely this danger: "When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a 'secular religion' which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world."
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi observes that Böckenförde lashes out against a capitalism of Protestant origin, dominated by man's egoism and inability to do good. But he does not realize that there is a capitalism in keeping with Catholic doctrine, which the popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II have denounced for its errors while appreciating its basic validity, linked to private property and freedom of investment and commerce.
In an article in Il Sole 24 Ore – Europe's most widely circulated financial newspaper – Gotti Tedeschi maintained that the current global turbulence does not arise from excessive greed or the lack of rules. These have aggravated the crisis, but did not cause it. The real cause was the reduction of the birth rate, and therefore of the human capital that alone was capable of ensuring the necessary growth in production.
The frontal attack that Böckenförde brings against capitalism must in any case come to terms with the answer that "Centesimus Annus," in paragraph 42, gives to the question of whether capitalism is a system that corresponds to "true economic and civil progress."
The answer of the encyclical is the following:
"If by 'capitalism' is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy or simply free economy."
In his article, the German scholar asks the social doctrine of the Church to awaken from its "Sleeping Beauty slumber" and apply itself to a "radical refutation" of capitalism, made obligatory by its current "evident collapse."
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
From the Financial Times: Governments struggle to assess aid effectively
Sir, After the heated rhetoric on FT.com from such eminent experts as Jeffrey Sachs and William Easterley about Dambiso Moyo’s book, Dead Aid, Mo Ibrahim is to be congratulated for restoring sober thought and analysis to the debate about the value of aid (“Good governance will bolster African aid”, May 28.)
His points that Ms Moyo’s proposed solutions may not be realistic and that aid alone cannot be either the solution to or the cause of Africa’s problems are well-taken.
However, like Ms Moyo and Messrs Sachs and Easterley, he seems to treat aid as fundamentally different from the other sources of development finance that African countries utilise. It is not. Like these other sources – for example international capital markets, foreign direct investors, remittances etc – it entails both costs and benefits.
This means that, like them, there will be some occasions when aid, despite its costs, will be the best source of finance for the particular purpose, and some situations in which it will be an inappropriate source. Identifying the most desirable times for utilising aid requires governments to dispassionately assess both the explicit and implicit costs and benefits associated with the offers of aid that they have received, and of the alternatives to those offers. It also requires negotiating the best possible deal with the chosen source of funds.
Unfortunately, some governments do not do this, either because of governance problems, as Mr Ibrahim suggests, or because they lack the resources required to make the necessary assessment and to negotiate effectively with their counterparts. This failure can be remedied if the relevant government officials are provided with the technical knowledge and resources needed to undertake this analysis and negotiation exercise, and are reminded that it is possible, and sometimes desirable, to decline offers of aid – just as they might decline offers from the private sector or from non-governmental organisations.
It would be a fortunate result of the debate on aid, which Ms Moyo’s book has stimulated and your newspaper has promoted, if Mr Ibrahim and all the experts who have participated in this debate were to contribute to assisting African governments to become more discriminating in their assessment of aid proposals, and more effective in their negotiations with their aid donors.
By Daniel D. Bradlow, University of Pretoria, South Africa
His points that Ms Moyo’s proposed solutions may not be realistic and that aid alone cannot be either the solution to or the cause of Africa’s problems are well-taken.
However, like Ms Moyo and Messrs Sachs and Easterley, he seems to treat aid as fundamentally different from the other sources of development finance that African countries utilise. It is not. Like these other sources – for example international capital markets, foreign direct investors, remittances etc – it entails both costs and benefits.
This means that, like them, there will be some occasions when aid, despite its costs, will be the best source of finance for the particular purpose, and some situations in which it will be an inappropriate source. Identifying the most desirable times for utilising aid requires governments to dispassionately assess both the explicit and implicit costs and benefits associated with the offers of aid that they have received, and of the alternatives to those offers. It also requires negotiating the best possible deal with the chosen source of funds.
Unfortunately, some governments do not do this, either because of governance problems, as Mr Ibrahim suggests, or because they lack the resources required to make the necessary assessment and to negotiate effectively with their counterparts. This failure can be remedied if the relevant government officials are provided with the technical knowledge and resources needed to undertake this analysis and negotiation exercise, and are reminded that it is possible, and sometimes desirable, to decline offers of aid – just as they might decline offers from the private sector or from non-governmental organisations.
It would be a fortunate result of the debate on aid, which Ms Moyo’s book has stimulated and your newspaper has promoted, if Mr Ibrahim and all the experts who have participated in this debate were to contribute to assisting African governments to become more discriminating in their assessment of aid proposals, and more effective in their negotiations with their aid donors.
By Daniel D. Bradlow, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Institutional Learning and Practice: Some Preliminary Thoughts
The concept of learning organization is not a new one. It flourished in the 1990s, stimulated by Peter M. Senge’s The Fifth Discipline and countless other publications. The result was a compelling vision of an organization made up of individuals skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge to their daily practices. These people could help their organizations cultivate tolerance, foster open discussion, and think holistically and systemically. Such learning organizations would be able to adapt to the unpredictable and changing environment more quickly, more effectively, and more efficiently than their competitors could.
Unpredictability is and will very much still be with us. However, the ideal of the learning organization has not yet been realized. Some factors have impeded progress:
• First, many of the early and current discussions about learning organizations were praises to a possible better world rather than implementable procedures and actions. They lacked a sense of pragmatism and the ability to translate them into concrete steps necessary for moving forward.
• Second, the concept was aimed at CEOs and senior executives rather than at an organization-wide culture and practice to which every and each individual could partake and contribute.
• Third, there has been a lack of process and outcome indicators and other tools by which change could be assessed overtime. Thus managers of smaller departments and units, where critical organizational work is done, had no way of assessing how their teams’ learning was contributing to the organization as a whole. Further, the lack of standards and tools for assessing lead to claim progress without delving into the particulars or comparing themselves accurately with others or with the set goals.
In the strategy of the organization where I work, we state that we intend to be “known for the quality of [its] work with children, which is rooted in a deep understanding of children’s experiences of deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability.” Such recognition [brand], we want to found on demonstrable and accurately assessed results of the impact of our work.
Our institution embraces as its core intent and primary objective a rich and complex task: the holistic growth and promotion of children to become agents of their own development, and – as they enter adulthood – to the development of their communities and future generations. Such an ambitious and demanding task requires a twofold approach:
• a continued, accurate and comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness and efficiencies of our deliverables in the field;
• which ought to be linked to an ongoing comprehensive organization-wide reflected learning and system analysis to increase our knowledge, understanding, efficiencies translated in very practical and usable ways.
The practical challenge we are facing seems to be as how best we can bring together facts and personal learning as primary information sources, in order to collectively make sense of what they mean and then translate the results into a greater capacity to be agile. In other words, how we can we transform information into organizational change in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our deliverables in the field. In both the private and the non-profit sector, the term organizational learning has arguably become a metaphor for managing change – which may retain even greater relevance in our context given its nature and complexity.
Organizational research over the past two decades has revealed three broad factors that are essential for organizational learning and adaptability: a supportive learning environment, concrete learning processes and practices, and leadership behavior that provides reinforcement.
A supportive learning environment: some preliminary observations
To learn, individuals [as well as children or youth] cannot fear being judged or marginalized when they disagree with peers or authority figures, ask naive questions, own up to mistakes, or present a minority viewpoint. Instead, they must be comfortable expressing their thoughts about the work at hand.
Learning occurs when people become aware of opposing ideas. Recognizing the value of competing functional outlooks and alternative worldviews increases energy and motivation, sparks fresh thinking, and prevents lethargy and drift.
Learning is not simply about correcting mistakes and solving problems. It is also about crafting novel approaches. Employees should be encouraged to take risks and explore the untested and unknown.
Time for reflection. When people are too busy or overstressed by deadlines and scheduling pressures, however, their ability to think analytically and creatively is compromised. They become less able to diagnose problems and learn from their experiences. Supportive learning environments allow time for a pause in the action and encourage thoughtful review of the organization’s processes.
Concrete learning processes and practices: some preliminary observations
A learning organization is not cultivated effortlessly. It arises from a series of concrete steps and widely distributed activities, not unlike the workings of business processes such as logistics, billing, order fulfillment, and product development. Learning processes involve the generation, collection, interpretation, and dissemination of information and understanding. They include experimentation to develop and test new products and services; intelligence gathering to keep track of competitive, customer, and technological trends; disciplined analysis and interpretation to identify and solve problems; and education and training to develop both new and established employees.
Leadership that reinforces learning: some preliminary observations
Organizational learning is strongly influenced by the behavior of leaders at all levels. When leaders actively question and listen to colleagues—and thereby prompt dialogue and debate—people in the institution feel encouraged to learn. If leaders signal the importance of spending time on problem identification, knowledge transfer, and reflective post-audits, these activities are likely to flourish.
Organizations are not monolithic: some preliminary observations
Managers must be sensitive to differences among departmental processes and behaviors as they strive to build learning organizations. Groups may vary in their focus or learning maturity. Managers need to be especially sensitive to local cultures of learning, which can vary widely across units.
****************************************
Sources
Garvin, D.
1993 Building a Learning Organization. Harvard Business Review.
Garvin, D., Edmondson, A., Gino, F.
2008 Is Yours a Learning Organization? Harvard Business Review.
Herda, E.
1999 Research Conversations and Narrative: A Critical Hermeneutic Orientation in Participatory Inquiry. Wesport and London: Praeger.
Senge, P.
1990 The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. New York: Double Day.
2006 The Necessary Revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world. New York: Double Day.
Spear, S.
2004 Learning to Lead at Toyota. Harvard Business Review.
Unpredictability is and will very much still be with us. However, the ideal of the learning organization has not yet been realized. Some factors have impeded progress:
• First, many of the early and current discussions about learning organizations were praises to a possible better world rather than implementable procedures and actions. They lacked a sense of pragmatism and the ability to translate them into concrete steps necessary for moving forward.
• Second, the concept was aimed at CEOs and senior executives rather than at an organization-wide culture and practice to which every and each individual could partake and contribute.
• Third, there has been a lack of process and outcome indicators and other tools by which change could be assessed overtime. Thus managers of smaller departments and units, where critical organizational work is done, had no way of assessing how their teams’ learning was contributing to the organization as a whole. Further, the lack of standards and tools for assessing lead to claim progress without delving into the particulars or comparing themselves accurately with others or with the set goals.
In the strategy of the organization where I work, we state that we intend to be “known for the quality of [its] work with children, which is rooted in a deep understanding of children’s experiences of deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability.” Such recognition [brand], we want to found on demonstrable and accurately assessed results of the impact of our work.
Our institution embraces as its core intent and primary objective a rich and complex task: the holistic growth and promotion of children to become agents of their own development, and – as they enter adulthood – to the development of their communities and future generations. Such an ambitious and demanding task requires a twofold approach:
• a continued, accurate and comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness and efficiencies of our deliverables in the field;
• which ought to be linked to an ongoing comprehensive organization-wide reflected learning and system analysis to increase our knowledge, understanding, efficiencies translated in very practical and usable ways.
The practical challenge we are facing seems to be as how best we can bring together facts and personal learning as primary information sources, in order to collectively make sense of what they mean and then translate the results into a greater capacity to be agile. In other words, how we can we transform information into organizational change in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our deliverables in the field. In both the private and the non-profit sector, the term organizational learning has arguably become a metaphor for managing change – which may retain even greater relevance in our context given its nature and complexity.
Organizational research over the past two decades has revealed three broad factors that are essential for organizational learning and adaptability: a supportive learning environment, concrete learning processes and practices, and leadership behavior that provides reinforcement.
A supportive learning environment: some preliminary observations
To learn, individuals [as well as children or youth] cannot fear being judged or marginalized when they disagree with peers or authority figures, ask naive questions, own up to mistakes, or present a minority viewpoint. Instead, they must be comfortable expressing their thoughts about the work at hand.
Learning occurs when people become aware of opposing ideas. Recognizing the value of competing functional outlooks and alternative worldviews increases energy and motivation, sparks fresh thinking, and prevents lethargy and drift.
Learning is not simply about correcting mistakes and solving problems. It is also about crafting novel approaches. Employees should be encouraged to take risks and explore the untested and unknown.
Time for reflection. When people are too busy or overstressed by deadlines and scheduling pressures, however, their ability to think analytically and creatively is compromised. They become less able to diagnose problems and learn from their experiences. Supportive learning environments allow time for a pause in the action and encourage thoughtful review of the organization’s processes.
Concrete learning processes and practices: some preliminary observations
A learning organization is not cultivated effortlessly. It arises from a series of concrete steps and widely distributed activities, not unlike the workings of business processes such as logistics, billing, order fulfillment, and product development. Learning processes involve the generation, collection, interpretation, and dissemination of information and understanding. They include experimentation to develop and test new products and services; intelligence gathering to keep track of competitive, customer, and technological trends; disciplined analysis and interpretation to identify and solve problems; and education and training to develop both new and established employees.
Leadership that reinforces learning: some preliminary observations
Organizational learning is strongly influenced by the behavior of leaders at all levels. When leaders actively question and listen to colleagues—and thereby prompt dialogue and debate—people in the institution feel encouraged to learn. If leaders signal the importance of spending time on problem identification, knowledge transfer, and reflective post-audits, these activities are likely to flourish.
Organizations are not monolithic: some preliminary observations
Managers must be sensitive to differences among departmental processes and behaviors as they strive to build learning organizations. Groups may vary in their focus or learning maturity. Managers need to be especially sensitive to local cultures of learning, which can vary widely across units.
****************************************
Sources
Garvin, D.
1993 Building a Learning Organization. Harvard Business Review.
Garvin, D., Edmondson, A., Gino, F.
2008 Is Yours a Learning Organization? Harvard Business Review.
Herda, E.
1999 Research Conversations and Narrative: A Critical Hermeneutic Orientation in Participatory Inquiry. Wesport and London: Praeger.
Senge, P.
1990 The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. New York: Double Day.
2006 The Necessary Revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world. New York: Double Day.
Spear, S.
2004 Learning to Lead at Toyota. Harvard Business Review.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Economic Environment and Cultural Values
Modernization theorists from Marx to Bell have argued that economic development brings pervasive cultural changes thus leading to a cultural homogenization and convergence as the result of economic development. On the other hand, others, from Weber to Huntington, have claimed that “cultural values have an enduring and autonomous influence on society” (Inglehart and Baker 2000: 20). In recent years, research and theory on socioeconomic development have given rise to two contending schools of thought. DiMaggio (1994: 56) suggests how "one school emphasizes the convergence of values as a result of modernization – viewed as an overwhelming flux of economic and political forces that drives political change. As a result traditional values decline and are replaced by modern values. The other school of thought emphasizes the persistence of traditional values despite economic and political changes. This school assumes that values are relatively independent of economic conditions. Consequently, it predicts that the convergence around some set of modern values is unlikely and that traditional values will continue to exert an independent influence on the cultural changes caused by economic development."
While substantial progress has been made, according to Vernon Ruttan (1998), within a partial equilibrium framework to analyze the sources and influence of technical and institutional change, little attention has been devoted by economists to the role of cultural endowments. To the extent that cultural traits – or cultural endowments – are considered at all by economists, they tend to be subsumed under the concept of tastes. In the post World War period, the first generation of development economists gave a prominent role, at least at a rhetorical level, to the role of cultural endowment in constraining or facilitating economic growth. Economists, such as Hagen (1962) and Rogers (1969), accepted the body of scholarship in history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and political science that insisted that cultural endowments exerted major influence on behavior and hence on the response in traditional societies to the opportunities associated with the modernization of community life and the possibilities of national economic development. In the next section, I take into consideration the major contribution on this topic offered in the last few decades.
Bert Hoselitz, from the University of Chicago, with his Non-Economic Barriers to Economic Development, played a particularly important role in the 1950s in urging economists to give greater consideration to the role of particular factors in economic development. Among the non-economic factors identified by Hoselitz (1952: 10) were the emergence of cultural minorities or classes that serve as the spearhead for both technical and institutional change; a social and political system that encourages a high degree of social mobility; social and cultural environment that facilitates the development of institutions capable of generating the technical and institutional knowledge necessary to operate a modern society; and the weakening of commitment to traditional methods of production and institutions.
This last consideration was particularly important in Hoselitz’s (1952: 15) view in that traditional "value systems offer special resistance to change … their change is facilitated if the material economic environment in which they can flourish is destroyed or weakened. […] Economic development plans which combine industrialization with an extension of traditional or near traditional forms of agriculture are thus creating a dilemma which in the long run may present serious repercussions in the speed or facility with which ultimate objects can be reached."
Another significant attempt to incorporate cultural variables into the analysis of economic development was that of Everett Hagen in his On the Theory of Social Change: How Economic Growth Begins. Hagen (1962: 4) argued that advances in the field of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics had “reached the point where a synthesis could be achieved to form a unified theory of society and social change.” Hagen’s (1962: 80) analysis led him to place primary emphasis on personality formation arguing that the “interrelations between personality formation and social structure are such that social change could not occur without prior or concurrent personality change.” Traditional societies were characterized, Hagen (1962: 83-84) contends, by authoritarian and unquestionable personalities,
the image of the world … includes a perception of uncontrollable forces. […] Each individual finds his place in the authoritarian hierarchy of human relationships.
In his historical studies, Hagen gave particular attention to the emergence of personality characteristics conducive to innovation, and argued that a disproportional share of entrepreneurs are drawn from social groups that were excluded from traditional elite roles. His work has been seen as the culmination of an effort to enrich the theory of development by drawing on anthropology, sociology, and psychology, rather than as the foundation for further advances.
While substantial progress has been made, according to Vernon Ruttan (1998), within a partial equilibrium framework to analyze the sources and influence of technical and institutional change, little attention has been devoted by economists to the role of cultural endowments. To the extent that cultural traits – or cultural endowments – are considered at all by economists, they tend to be subsumed under the concept of tastes. In the post World War period, the first generation of development economists gave a prominent role, at least at a rhetorical level, to the role of cultural endowment in constraining or facilitating economic growth. Economists, such as Hagen (1962) and Rogers (1969), accepted the body of scholarship in history, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and political science that insisted that cultural endowments exerted major influence on behavior and hence on the response in traditional societies to the opportunities associated with the modernization of community life and the possibilities of national economic development. In the next section, I take into consideration the major contribution on this topic offered in the last few decades.
Bert Hoselitz, from the University of Chicago, with his Non-Economic Barriers to Economic Development, played a particularly important role in the 1950s in urging economists to give greater consideration to the role of particular factors in economic development. Among the non-economic factors identified by Hoselitz (1952: 10) were the emergence of cultural minorities or classes that serve as the spearhead for both technical and institutional change; a social and political system that encourages a high degree of social mobility; social and cultural environment that facilitates the development of institutions capable of generating the technical and institutional knowledge necessary to operate a modern society; and the weakening of commitment to traditional methods of production and institutions.
This last consideration was particularly important in Hoselitz’s (1952: 15) view in that traditional "value systems offer special resistance to change … their change is facilitated if the material economic environment in which they can flourish is destroyed or weakened. […] Economic development plans which combine industrialization with an extension of traditional or near traditional forms of agriculture are thus creating a dilemma which in the long run may present serious repercussions in the speed or facility with which ultimate objects can be reached."
Another significant attempt to incorporate cultural variables into the analysis of economic development was that of Everett Hagen in his On the Theory of Social Change: How Economic Growth Begins. Hagen (1962: 4) argued that advances in the field of anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics had “reached the point where a synthesis could be achieved to form a unified theory of society and social change.” Hagen’s (1962: 80) analysis led him to place primary emphasis on personality formation arguing that the “interrelations between personality formation and social structure are such that social change could not occur without prior or concurrent personality change.” Traditional societies were characterized, Hagen (1962: 83-84) contends, by authoritarian and unquestionable personalities,
the image of the world … includes a perception of uncontrollable forces. […] Each individual finds his place in the authoritarian hierarchy of human relationships.
In his historical studies, Hagen gave particular attention to the emergence of personality characteristics conducive to innovation, and argued that a disproportional share of entrepreneurs are drawn from social groups that were excluded from traditional elite roles. His work has been seen as the culmination of an effort to enrich the theory of development by drawing on anthropology, sociology, and psychology, rather than as the foundation for further advances.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)