NN42, June 2009
A Safari Towards Aid Effectiveness?
Does Aid Aid?
By Claudio de Moura Castro, Faculdade Pitagoras, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Email: claudioc@kroton.com.brKeywords
Aid
Summary
The author of this piece has worked for 15 years inside major international organizations, and here offers a perspective on aid from ?inside? the aid machine.
Fifteen years working for the World Bank, the ILO and the IDB certainly do not boost enough my credentials to give advice on the confusing Aid controversies. Yet, after these years, I have developed my own theories and prejudices. Here they are.
NGOs, do-gooders, stern university professors and others rant about the evils of multilateral and bi-lateral agencies and their multitude of attempts to boost development. They denounce evil machinations, ideological bias, misdirected policies, incompetence and a myriad of other faults. I do not dismiss all or even most of their criticism.
However, in my humble opinion, these accusations miss the target. Being close or inside large organizations that try to help poor countries, I have seen thousands of well-trained staff doing their best to make a difference. In contrast, very few officers seem stupid, jaded, cynical or self-serving in what they do.
We all agree that, to a significant extent, many of these attempts fail or show results that are too modest, compared to what was spent. But the reasons for the disappointments are different.
As a collective, we just do not know how to do better. This is a far more serious matter.
Those countries that need the most are unable to deploy effectively the resources targeted to them. Surely, there is corruption. But is it powerful enough to explain the failures of Aid? The essence of the problem is that poverty and the lack of capacity to use Aid are part and parcel of the same predicament.
The efforts fail because local institutions are weak and disorganized. They are unable to transform Aid into development. This is the most vicious of the vicious circles.
The strident critics would be far more helpful if they tried to understand why honest approaches do not work and propose something better. But proposals to fix should consider legal constraints and practicalities. Even if donor governments and lending institutions could send officers with suitcases of money to wipe out poverty, there is no convincing evidence that this would produce better results.
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