Since this debate rages on - I am going to be really mean and publish my last comment received as a new post and my response to it and see what you think: (sorry neil).
neil said...
I dont agree with your article (see previous post) because it confuses many different types of aid or charity and the practitioners.
You move from consultants at DFID, but base your comments on benefits which are available to permanent employees, to charities, about which you simply assert that money does not reach those who need it and that it makes things worse. Both these are assumptions, born of prejudice, fuelled by the outrage built-up in your opening paragraphs with regard to some who I admit may seem over-paid, under-worked and hopelessly priveleged.
You argue that the situation is too complex to be affected by indivuals giving small amounts of money, without mentioning that most larger international non-governmental organisations work on the basis of combining those contributions into programmes, including elements of advocacy, policy change and campaigning, that have been effective, and have been proved to be effective, in saving and improving many current and future lives in many different situations.
You say that most projects last less than five years, without realising that this is not in itself a good way of measuring what impact or sustainability a particular project may have.
You seem unaware that most of UKAID is not in fact spent on the employment of practitioners - only a tiny proportion - with most going either to governments in the form of budget support or to non-governmental organisations who in turn run the programmes and are held to account for the results and the cost.
I would not deny there is waste, or that things could not be done better: an analysis of the UK funding of the free primary education in Kenya is a case in point; but your post is flawed by the polemical approach you take at the start and return to periodically throughout.
Having talked about charities you then seem to equate all of them with what you have witnessed in relation to those established by westerners in Kenya, ignoring that there are many different types, specialisations, sizes and origins of charities, including indigenous; and,one could hazard, good and bad, or more or less efficient and effective?
Lastly there is no evidence that aid has created a hand-out culture in developing nations; this is a common myth, and is a disservice to ordinary people in developing countries who I doubt would feel dependent upon foreign aid. A cursory glance at the total amount of money spent by DFID in Kenya vis a vis the overall Kenyan Government budget would tell you this.
Arguing from the particular (that people in DFID are overpaid in your opinion) to the general (that UKAID is a waste of money and should be cut) is rather missing the point.
I think that the UK Government, which has the reputation of being the best government donor on many counts (such as untying all aid so that it can be spent most effectively) should be commended for continuing to increase its UKAID budget.
By all means call for greater scrutiny, and further improvements on how aid is delivered; but please base your arguments on a more critical analysis and less personal anecdote.
3:37 PM
Africa Expat Wife said...
Hi Neil,
Thanks for your feedback.
Having been fairly open and honest about my position, I wonder, are you a Dfid employee, or involved in the aid industry or politics on a broader level?
While my blog post is admittedly peppered with anecdotes, I feel that your comment seems to be based more on theory than practise? Correct me if I'm wrong.
I will agree that attacking Dfid consultants and charities in general in Kenya is too vague an approach. Apologies for that.
However, the whole point of this piece was to draw attention to the fact that THERE IS A MAJOR PROBLEM HERE!
Since independence, the majority of Kenyans have got poorer so clearly something is not working.
On June 3rd, the local papers reported that Shs500 million earmarked for IDPs, (Kenyans left homeless by post-election violence) turns out to have been stolen by provincial administration officials and senior government officials. Looking at the comments online, ordinary Kenyans are once more outraged ... and helpless.
This story may not be directly linked to Dfid funding(the primary education fund scandal was)but it is yet another example to illustrate that the hand-out culture (and there most definitely is one!) is being vastly abused - regularly - from top to bottom.
Pilfering from government funds is made easier by aid money pouring into the country year after year, with not enough checks and balances in place. It's all too easy to milk the system and lets face it, Kenyan politicians and people in authority have got very good at it. They seem to have no qualms about stealing from the less fortunate and most steal with impunity.
Sadly, these news headlines are by no means rare. New scandals/stories of theft from public finances come to light monthly. I can hardly bear to read them.
Plus, I'd like to point out that in Kenya, NGOs are considered by many (Kenyans) as a joke, since they come and go with startling regularity and the majority acheive very little. A friend who lives in Kibera said,
'We see these big, shiny NGO vehicles coming to Kibera, there's an important man, they set up an office, then a couple of years later the office disappears and we people have seen no benefits. For us, life in Kibera just stays the same.'
To go to your last point, I did not say that people in developing nations feel dependent on foreign aid. Far from it - I think that people in developing nations feel crippled by foreign aid because it's holding back the country's development.
On the other hand, foreign investment and trade with favourable terms helps development.
The UK government throwing aid money at Kenya is a mess, so unlike you, I do not commend them for doing this continually. The money is NOT spent effectively and by all accounts has never been.
Years ago my father-in-law was told by a friend in UK government, 'we know that 85% of aid money sent to Africa goes astray - but we do it because at least some of it is getting through.' As a teacher working very hard in a Kenyan university just after independence, he was furious at this shockingly wasteful attitude.
My argument is that Claire Short and Tony Blair were wrong. A new approach is drastically needed to lift Kenya away from grand scale corruption abuses and poverty.
10:55 AM
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The diary of a British expat living in Kenya. News, views, debate and a healthy dose of trivia.
"Lastly there is no evidence that aid has created a hand-out culture in developing nations"
ReplyDeleteI don't know which planet this Neil fellow lives on! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry reading this.
In your reply to Neil...you hit the nail on the head. I agree they should cut aid until accountability is realized. They just realeased the current Kenyan budget and 80% of it is going to pay the already corrupt leaders that we have and to top it all they already have their hands out for more handouts. YES..Kenya relies on aid from donors and therefore they will never learn how to create their own development. Sad part is that they have all the resources to do so, but if handouts are freely given...then they keep taking.
ReplyDeleteEven as a UK national living in London and with plenty of family back in Kenya, I feel aid should be cut not only to Kenya but the rest of the world and better spent on countries with high unemployment, high debt, excess public spending and low skills levels - i.e. the UK.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the honour of the new post.
ReplyDeleteI work for Save the Children and live in Kenya.
My argument is based on logic backed-up by practical experience and is not just theoretical; I hope to give you some concrete examples to convince you and Anonymous.
Your main points are that there is waste and theft of the UK overseas aid, exemplified by what happens in Kenya, that this has led to a hand-out culture, and that therefore aid should be cut.
Further you go on to say in your recent comments that foreign aid is actually holding back development and never works in Africa.
I described the hand-out culture as a myth and would still challenge you and Anonymous to give one example of it. It would help to define what you mean by it; my understanding of a hand-out culture is people waiting around and dependent on the hand-out?
The reason I am so irritated by examples of this very common myth propagation as it plays to a particular view of developing, and particularly African countries, inhabited by an ignorant and feckless population, unable to stand on their own two feet despite the largesse lavished upon them by the West.
This is not what you mean and therefore you must be talking about a hand-out culture amongst the leaders. I think this cuts to the heart of our disagreement:
Who could deny that there is massive and engrained corruption? But sadly if you look at the recent one trillion shilling budget (over 8 billon UK pounds) the money spent previously by DFID (some millions of pounds) on free primary education is not sufficient for the corrupt leaders to be dependent upon it.
In the early nineties there was an aid freeze in Kenya ostensibly to push for political change, and the economy staggered on; with the politcal change (such as it is) largely coming from popular pressure. The leaders didn't bemoan the lack of opportunity to steal from DFID - just got busy with the genesis of Goldenburg, a scam so large that it dwarfed annual gross domestic product let alone aid budgets.
That may be true without making the theft of money from the primary education budgets OK? I would agree, but would like to point out a couple of things:
UK aid in this instance was based on a "sector" approach, which gives more control to the donor and less opportunity for corruption unlike "budget support" which has been used in Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania, with varying success, so there was an intent to contol the situation; second the flow of money was stopped when the theft became apparent - perhaps not early enough, but in sharp contrast to the cold-war era (to which your father-in-law's acquaintance may have been referring) where strategic considerations routinely outweighed any sense or control; thirdly, and most importantly, millions of Kenyan children who would othewise not have gone to school have done so.
Its my turn to give some anecdotes: the DFID funded programme in South Sudan which has enabled the reestablishment of primary education for the first time in two generations and pioneered ways of ensuring girls go to school too; the water and sanitation work in Liberia, where UK aid has funded a consortium of NGOs with several million pounds to establish very successful water and sanitation projects; thousands of lives saved in northern Nigeria (despite the corruption) through immunisation and mother and child health programmes established using British tax payer money; the UKs support to Sierra Leone which is credited with stopping the hideous civil war, and helping it get back on its feet - even though there is still corruption there too; don't you think that children's lives saved and improved is worth the expense and the political commitment of Clare Short and others?
ReplyDeleteIf you call for a cut in UK aid budgets all these sort of programmes would have to be halted; but actually you would be stopping other things too:
Quite a lot of UK aid goes via the European Union, and whatever you think of that, its humanitarian wing ECHO, finances much of the emergency work of NGOs in war zones and disasters across the world.
Some, as I mention, goes in budget support - and you would withdraw that from Rwanda, where despite increasing worries about its human rights approach, they have pretty much zero tolerance to corruption, and have stabilisd the country since the genocide.
The UN system is also a beneficiary of UK aid - and yes some of it is probably wasted and certainly paid on those high salaries you dislike - but you would be withdrawing support just when Kofi Annan has created a new-found relevance of the UN in both development and peace-building.
You would also be cutting some of the money which goes on micro-finance pojects, vocational training, ecouraging entrepreneurship, establishing youth employment programmes and a whole host of things that you would value more than those I have mentioned above.
Unfortunately you would have to scrap the assistance that DFID is giving to developing countries to help them deal with climate change effects, which let's face it, were not caused by them in the first place and are perpetuating poverty.
Last Friday (11th June) in the Standard editorial section there was a letter from the new UK Secretary of State for International Development re-affirming commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI (from 2013) on overseas aid.
He also writes: "In future, when we give money directly to governments in developing countries, we want to earmark up to five percent of the total amount to help parliaments, civil society and audit bodies to hold to account those who spend their money."
Perhaps you can agree that DFID is the best of a bad bunch if you examine some of the policies and procedures of other donors?
I think that despite the theft and the waste it is prejudiced for you to claim that all aid to Africa is ineffective - you really need to give some evidence of this; to go further and say that aid has impoverished Kenyans is nonsensical. What about the part played by the leaders who do the thieving; what about the geopolitical machinations during the post-independence period? What about the debilitating our-turn-to-eat culture that exist?
The argument of looking at waste and theft and damning the whole system and principles behind it is similar to saying that you are scandalised by the expenses that a lot of MPs have claimed and therefore you would like to get rid of them all and be ruled by an absolute monarch and their descendants; its understandable, certainly populist but why not try a bit of reform first?
Well put Neil...
ReplyDeleteActually the the Kenyan budget is 95 percent from internal sources and heavy domestic borrowing,the 5 percent allowance for donor money is generally for programmes that may be done away within case the money is not forthcoming,for instance free education and HIVprogrammes.
ReplyDeleteBetween 1991 and 2003 there was absolutely no foreign aid or budget support but the result was high inflation,heavy domestic borrowing and negative growth,in addition to the biggest corruption scandals,because foreign governments can not ask for accountability on money that they have not provided.In other words,donor money is accounted for while money raised internally is not,so aid money is used for government programmes and tax money goes into private pockets.Do away with aid,and local resources will be utilised accountably,as the public gets more inquisitive.
Mark,economist,Nairobi
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI hope this reaches you, firstly I have enjoyed reading your blog. It is touching, startling and inspiring.
I am not sure if you could help me (dont stop reading just yet!)
I am bringing a small team from the UK on 24th July. Our original plan was to supply two vehicles to two orphanages in Kenya but due to high duties and corruption we have decied to pool the money and buy a couple of vehicles when we arrive (or before). A good friend of mine who was stationed in Nairobi with the British Army suggested that the expat community was the best place to find vehicles at the right price, we have a limited budget of around £4,000 per vehcile. We aren't a fly by night outfit and we are committed to the long term nature of what we are doing, we are already supporting the orphanages and building them up.
Do you think you could let me know of any contacts who would sell us a couple of vehicles at the right price? Sorry to ask, I hope you dont mind.
Kind regards
Jim Hidderley
Hopetrek 2010
www.hopetrek.org.uk
0044 1527 458258
0044 7717780394
jimhidderley@blueyonder.co.uk
Hi Jim,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
Sadly I am afraid I don't have any contacts who would supply vehicles at a reduced price for charity.
As you know vehicles are v. expensive here. Most of the Nairobi shopping centres have notice boards with expat leaving and local dealer's cars for sale with photos and details. Do look at these when you arrive. July is good timing as many expats leave now as it's the end of the school year.
At Silverbird cinemas and Dormans coffee houses (both within shopping centres such as Junction, Westgate, Sarit Centre, Prestige Plaza, Yaya, Village Market) you can also find a free mag called 'Xpat Link' that lists cars for sale.
To be honest it's all a bit of a lottery, but do chose 'duty paid' vehicles (UN and embassy staff are exempt from paying) - as paying duty as you know can be crippling).
Some dealers are also worth checking out, they are not all bad. Do test drive the car and feel free to take it to a local mechanic to check that it is sound.
There is also a huge used car market in Jamhuri Park every Sunday (morning?) in Nairobi. I haven't been there myself, but hear it's vast and worth a visit.
Very good luck with your trip. Let me know if there is anything else I can help with.