10/19/10 - The Failure and Success of Aid - An Op-Ed Piece
There are people much smarter than I who watch and monitor the state of the world. And they want it to be a better place.
http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2010/sp101008.html. And until the answers reveal themselves, I will ask, how can we fix the world? How to leverage and ramp up faster than we are currently?
Where is aid failing? Where and how can it succeed best? Ah...how I would love to have the magic answers. Is bigger better? Is throwing money at a situation a way to create sustainability? If a school is built and it's missing the funding or sustainable local source for revenue, then you have just a building with no teachers, no chalk, no generator. If you have solar solutions, now you have one part handled, but what of the rest? If you cannot provide a teacher, then who will teach the students in the school? Unfortunately, in countries where it's not sustainable, I have the sense that we are considering things backwards. The conundrum of which came first the chicken or the egg is now which killed the species first: the last infertile chicken or the last dead egg? Why is the aid movement moving so fast and so slowly?
How to stop the bleeding human resources? If you have American college trained PhD level researchers and medical professionals, what makes them want to return, when they are more marketable and have more resources in the U.S., after they graduate? What entices a local doctor? Is it his or her word and promise to return and live a life of service? Who will protect the health of nations underseved with little medical infrastructures?
Perhaps the answer lies in baby steps, my favorite. Small step yield bigger gains. Love it! But which baby step to take first? Save the babies who won't have an education? Or educate the children who won't have jobs? Create jobs by creating organizations that don't exist today, which sell goods few can purchase? Provide medication for illnesses that no one can afford to buy? Maybe P.A.H.O. has the health model just right, vaccinate the world and give them a fighting chance (my words not theirs)? At least if the populations live longer because they are immunized, then there's more chance that they can life long enough to be a part of a new economy, trade, opportunity, urbanization or perhaps the next change leader?
Maybe
incremental gains in all three: Health, Education and Sustainability? Greg Mortensen (Central Asia Institute and author of
Three Cups of Tea) has a great model. He builds schools which are sustainable. The results are stunning. He's done more to perpetuate the peace process in that area than any rocket. I cried at the beauty of those stories. In the villages with his schools, infant mortality is down, prosperity is up, but the marriage age and birth rates are being affected, but in a good way! More choices for women, hoorah! Less infants being born, reduces the total numbers of deaths percentage-wise. Better education and better health lead to longer lives and prosperity. Less children born into families have less financial strain on a family's resources and a better likelihood the child will live and prosper in life.
Maybe the answer is have less babies?
So then, family planning becomes an issue at hand. But how to change the mind frame when virility is an anticipated "right" of all men and the seed which seeks to plant itself and grow life? Another topic for another day about the biology of reproduction and the fertility rights of men. Here are some numbers as I recall hearing the spokesperson for the IMC tell me as I sat in a dining room filled with benefactors wondering why the hell I was sitting among these wealthy, giving, and lovely folks: 1 in 76 children die in Africa. 1 in 8600 in the U.S. Focusing on obstetrics is critical. Infant mortality is a paramount issue. 10,000,000 babies die each year world wide. These are wanted babies and a horrificly large number of deaths. The IMC website says for $5.00 you can save a baby. For the cost of my latte, I can affect infant mortality. Starbucks, I have an idea for you! A new fuzzy feely campaign - buy our coffee and save the babies from the country where your coffee is born. It at least taps into the economic cycle of more that our love of that consumerism of their coffee breeds. Coffee saves the world. Diamonds and cadmium corrupt it. Maybe we need a buy one cell phone save a baby campaigns?
One would argue this puts a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of the Western world. But at the 1% of the 1% ish...we can manage. We're spending the money anyway, might as well put it to good use. Of course if we could just figure the whole debt and tax thing, so we could have more prosperity with which to save the world... one can hope!
Boutique NGOs?
What of the smaller organizations with smaller resources and more passion and a hands-on approach? Boutique NGO seeks snail's pace incremental change in a growing world. Please submit resumes via the toothfairy. Is it possible to have so many smaller organizations doing smaller scale work that will create huge gains? What's the best way to leverage? Should every NGO also cross teach? Not a bad idea. NGO standards. If you're gonna talk, you must always say the following words: "I pledge allegiance to the people and do solemnly swear to uphold peace, health, and prosperity for all." At least if the message is the same across the board, no matter who is being serviced, then you maximize the efforts of all the organizations. The scattered efforts are as useful as the focused bigger NGOs' efforts. "I sell eye-glasses, but want to talk about your health issues, obstetrics, diet, and water, education, fertility, and financial solutions."
How to best leverage resources? Global Do.Gooders wanted to teach students one on one what social entrepreneurship is. My argument against that model was because I thought it was bad leveraging to focus on one student at one time. An advantage of teacher training was that you could leverage each teacher more effectively than you could leverage one student. Teachers have a 1 teacher to 30 student ratio, and year after year, class after class. Direct to student is a 1:0 ratio. The student learns but doesn't teach/pass on their knowledge in a quantifiable way. This delves into the leveraging model. Perhaps we should consider the tipping point's mavens? But then how do you reach the people of the tipping point's tipping point? Who are these mavens and where can we find them?
There's as much value in knowing what doesn't work, as in what does work.
Corruption doesn't work. Education does work, but not everyone attends school. Were you to educate each person in a society in which there are no jobs, now you have a second problem of an educated populace with no work. Depression, unemployement, and dissention and dare I add, probably more babies, after awhile would set in. No the educated need an outlet for their minds. So what to teach? You can do anything you want, you just have to put your mind to it? How do we teach the process of dreaming big?
Charity often doesn't create sustainability, because it's transactional, not self sustaining and the efforts are varied and if not at full cross-purposes. So many charities want to further their causes that they've split the partyvote if you will by offering more than one candidate from which to choose. Big efforts are too big and smaller charity efforts are too small leaving the underserved countries in the middle.
Micro-finance can create self-sustaining systems through entrepreneurship, but what if you are an unsuccessful entrepreneur? Yes, I know and LOVE Grameen Bank, so yes, I love how this has impacted and helped people. I love Acumen Fund too. Just askin' how do we avoid a debt spiral if we're full-fledged turning people into consumers and providers of services? More begets the need for more, which begets the need for more...
Health works to create the wealth of nations. And we have issues these the three biggest issues: obstetrics (since everyone is born to a mother), infectious diseases, and the growth of urban diseases like diabetes and obesity. It's "rich" to eat an unhealthy urban diet of processed foods. Health plays its part as does unhealthfulness.
Money and resources: 40% of the world makes under $2.00 a day. But what is poor? Are Americans poorer than we think? We are at a negative savings rate, meaning we're in deep doo-doo debt and are minus money. Are we experiencing this same downward spiral of poverty here like some termite eaten door that collapses into dust? It looks fine, but there's nothing really holding the door intact except the dead termite bodies?
I digress...on the issue of American poverty which exists on the same degree but on a different scale. Americans have trouble rubbing two nickels together as well, we just have a system that allows for opportunities to get out of debt and poverty. And our playing field starts out theoretically level. All children have access to an education.
So if you are poor, then what? The cost of goods for even the basics are beyond the measure of the world's poorest. An item with a price point of $100.00 might as well be priced at 1M. To be able to pay $100.00 for something is an unreasonable a request as asking for 1B. You cannot give what you don't have. The barrier to entry for most things then is beyond the grasp of many. How to equalize this? Give everyone in the world $1,000.00 and see what happens? I can tell you what will happen, people will do the same thing they did the day before with $1.00, because that's how people behave. They behave the same, until shown differently and new behaviors are formed. Neigh, we cannot remove systems without providing something to fill the hole we've left. Similarly, we cannot expect to just increase the wealth with no perspective around how to keep it. The psychological poverty spiral has a deeper hold than we realize.
The good news, Americans lead the world in giving aid, which is awesome. But how effective is it and to what end? We (the world) financed Congo 14.5 Billion's worth of aid and...
"To cite a few World Bank statistics, [c. 2001] Congo's economy has shrunk to the level of 1958, while the population has tripled. Average life expectancy is fifty-two, 80% are employed in 'subsistence activities'; illiteracy is growing. AIDS is rife and such diseases as bubonic plague and sleeping sickness are enjoying a vibrant comeback. (p 214)
45 million Congolese and the country is14.5 Billion in debt (p. 202).
Of course, there are many issues as to why, which this paragraph cannot begin to deconstruct the intricacies of the Mobuto regime. Still it begs the question. Where does aid work? What's the penalty for corrupt mis-use of funds?
Save the Planet Toy and no instructions:
How does aid work best? Thank you for buying your new toy: save the planet. With a little water and the right soil conditions your planet will flourish. Don't overwater and don't give it too much sun, or too little sun. but what's too much and too little of anything if you're missing the third element of perspective. Growing zones, time of year, measurements of who much water is too much.
If only aid was that easy and every country came with instructions and a surgeon general's warning. I wish I knew the answers, cause boy have the questions been percolating. I have 4 books and a site that are rocking my world right now. And they're the beginning. I haven't even tapped into the resources that exist about how much of everything there is to know.
End the monetary system as we know it?
Jeffrey Sach's
The End of Poverty talks of reasons how and why and suggests ways to end poverty. Though my friends offer a brain twist to me during a luncheon: End the monetary system. Stop wasting time at banal jobs, so we can spend our time being useful and innovative. I think they want to add, kill your tv. Not sure. I might have just imagined a world where more people are not watching TV and are back to basics considering the how to make humanity thrive, like the Greeks did. If this happened, then who would we be as a global world? Informed? Innovative? Living in a world we cannot begin to conceive of now, where people actually like and love each other? It could happen...I'm leaving open the possibility for it. We're an evolving species after all. Some say, everyone should just take a trip to the moon and back. Nothing like feeling like a cosmic spec to make your sense of industrial and geographic entitlements go to hell in a hand-basket.
They feel that if people weren't expected to get jobs and earn money, then we might be a society of people who enjoy and do rather than consume and gobble resources to an ever greater scale and end. I'm not sure who my friends thought would want to pick up the trash and pave the roads, but I like the idea of a world where the resources are aplenty and the masses get to live rather than seek ways to live within a monetary system. Much as I enjoy money, I've enjoyed no money more. Being a millionaire doesn't preclude you from illness or negativity, so money isn't happiness, for example. Happiness they feel should come from some other place besides money. I don't disagree. I challenge them. There's nothing to replace it yet. Yunus is close, he identifies that we'll have other systems of capitalism and are growing them now. Certainly no monetary system wouldn't allow for the haves and have-nots. How would our egos feel special? How would we determine ownership of things? Would it all be peace and love? Could we end the squabbles over resources?
The books and ideas that are inspiring me right now are:
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortensen
The Blue Sweater, Jacqueline Novagratz
A World Without Poverty, Muhammad Yunus
The End of Poverty, Jeffery Sachs
"The Case for Micro-Finance", Greg Van Kirk
The offer great insights and amazing stories and collectively the wisdom of over 100 years.
Perhaps the next 10 generations will solve that issue. But what of now, in this lifetime? For the moment, I'm asking the questions, knowing the answers will reveal themselves to me.
Asking questions yields the answers;
Maybe we need to ask the people and hear their words? What one small thing would you do to improve your life? And like the make a wish foundation, they can get their one wish granted. Only we'd call it The Pick a Wish Foundation: Your choice of: the end of corruption, war, ethnic cleansing (aren't we all Pangean anyway? Geez!), diseases, killing and raping, or mosquito net, malaria medicine, AIDS medicine, or clean water, or education?
People know what they want and what they need. Perhaps we can do a case study and control for confounding variables of life and that will answer our questions? I like it.
My grant proposal:
Dear Mr. President, I need 1Billion dollars to study the needs and wants of the 6Billion people on the planet. It's important. Everyone has an answer, we just need to listen.
To Be Continued...when the answers come...
