I think the West missed a trick, because it adopted — certainly in Africa and many of the poor emerging economies — an attitude of “do what we say and not what we do.” The whole idea of incentives, which has been the backbone of the success in Western economies, is not something the West transplanted into places like Africa. The approach to economic development in Africa has been focused on aid; it’s been focused on what someone called “learned helplessness.”
From article, ‘The Seesaw of Power‘ (Dambisa Moyo in the NYT. May I add – she is so beautiful!)
Fascinating.
I have always been a believer in that pithy statement on the subject (whose statement, I don’t know!) – “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Aid is like a dumping a boatload of fishes in the man’s village. Necessary of course, at times of pandemic and natural disaster – but I don’t feel it is really viable in the long term. Certainly in places like India, aid is horribly misused, and very little (if any) of it actually trickles down to the impoverished masses who need it.
I wonder if it makes more sense for people to invest directly in infrastructural development &/or institutions, instead of relying on governments to do it or doling out lots of money without really looking at what ends it is used for, to whom and where it goes.
My parents (and wider family generally) have an interesting way of dealing with the whole business of charity, one that I admire significantly (not only because it appears to make vast amounts of sense, but also because it has shown results).
That poverty and suffering will not be eradicated through a momentary dumping of money somewhere-or-other is evident. India, and various parts of Asia generally, are highly unequal societies: in Malaysia (for example) people have “maids”, who live sometimes a very cloistered life, and India anyone from the middle-middle to upper-middle class probably has maids, drivers, cooks & cleaners. Vast amounts of serving-people, and a stark domestically-concentrated juxtaposition between the have and have-nots. The terms in which the latter are viewed by the former are often disturbing and sometimes, disgusting – the paradigms of possession, class superiority, etc. all play into it.
But this is an issue stemming from some wider social malaise – the means of alleviating it lie not in said individual family’s hands, but really, the country’s hands generally. My parents, however, seem to have found a really inspiring and effective way of doing their bit – they pay for the education of their workers’ children. My mother put it this way; “we can’t really change the first generation, but what we can do is ensure that future generations have the skills & abilities to live a better life, & bring up their children with better opportunities.” And of course look after their parents in their old-age, as is demanded by many of Asia’s cultures.
The stories of laundrymen’s sons in boardrooms and the cook’s daughters in software companies at the end of the day really is very inspiring. Education has the potential to change the future of generations to come; material gifts would have helped perhaps one or two people, if anybody at all.
Image via Wikipedia
