48 - Better or Worse?

Economically, throughout the developing world, if what one looks at are the standard indicators that banks and credit rating agencies use, then virtually all developing countries are worse off now than they were in 1985, when I began working for the YMCA.

Indebtedness remains a major impediment to development. As the year 2000 approached, the eight richest nations in the world–the G8–promised to cancel $100 billion of the debt owed by 52 of the world’s poorest countries, but by 2003 in fact only $18 billion had been cancelled and this for just four countries. In 2005, the issue of debt forgiveness was once more placed on the agenda of the G8 meetings held in Gleneagles, Scotland. Even though that meeting was disrupted by the Al-qaeda attack on London, a statement on debt forgiveness was issued; however, it focussed on only 18 of the more than 60 nations which require attention.

Political violence throughout the developing world, if anything, seems to be on the rise. Not just in the Middle East, but also in Asia, the Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. Again, just considering what took place in the year 2002, Hindu fundamentalists in Gujarat province in India killed over 1000 Muslims; Maoist rebels in Nepal slaughtered 129 police officers, soldiers, and civilians; in Nigeria, Moslems angered by the staging of the Miss World pageant went on a rampage which left 250 people dead and thousands homeless; in Africa, as civil war finally came to an end in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it broke out in Côte d’Ivoire; civil and political violence continued in Zimbabwe and broke out in the Central African Republic; Al-qaeda suicide bombings expanded to Tunisia and Kenya; the President of Colombia had to declare a large part of his nation a war zone; and in Peru, Sindero Luminoso, a Maoist terror group which it was thought had been effectively brought under control back in 1992, once more emerged.

All of this would suggest that conditions in developing countries are continuing to deteriorate. And yet the United Nations, International Aid agencies such as CIDA–the Canadian International Development Agency–and some Non-Governmental Organizations point to a wide spectrum of improvements which have taken place in developing countries during this same twenty year period: improvements in food production and nutrition, improvements in efforts to ensure that all children–in particular girls–have access to education. And as girls become better educated, these groups point to a range of positive consequences: The children of a woman who has had as little as four years of education are more than twice as likely to survive infancy as are the children of women who can’t read or write. So as the education of girls improves, there has also been a reduction in infant mortality rates. Many childhood diseases have been controlled. Approximately 80% of the world’s children have been immunised against the six major infectious diseases, and other diseases, like smallpox, have been eliminated. Because more children are surviving infancy and early childhood, globally the birth rate has also begun to come down.

Is this evidence of actual improvements in developing countries or is it just “spin”?

47 – AIDS and Africa

There are questions which seem like they should be easier to answer than in fact they are. One frequently raised about developing countries is whether there are any signs of improvement in them. Usually the questioner is wondering about the funding from foreign aid programs like Canada’s, or donations made by individuals to charitable organizations working in developing nations. The questioner wants to know whether these have made a difference or not. They want to know if there have been any discernable signs of improvement in the so-called Third World over the last twenty or thirty or however many years.

All the questioner wants is a simple yes or no. Either things are getting better or they aren’t. But the only honest answer that can be given is: It depends. It depends upon what one is looking at. It depends upon the criteria one is using to measure improvement. It depends upon what one means by things “getting better.”

In the twenty-seven year period since I began working in this field in 1985, developing countries have suffered many devastating set-backs.

One of the most dramatic has been the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is the virus which causes AIDS. It is most commonly passed through either sexual contact or through blood-to-blood contact, for example through the shared use of intravenous needles. However, women can also pass the virus to their children during pregnancy, delivery, and breast-feeding. Although not all individuals with HIV develop AIDS, a majority of them will within seven to ten years.

AIDS is an acronym for “Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.” The immune systems of people with AIDS are weakened–become deficient–and are therefore unable to fight infections which are more easily controlled in healthy individuals. Individuals with AIDS are subject to what are called “opportunistic infections.” That means the infections are caused by organisms which do not affect people with healthy immune systems but take the “opportunity” to flourish in persons with HIV.

The HIV virus appears to have originated in African chimpanzees and crossed over to the human population early in the 20th century, probably through blood to blood contact associated with hunting. The disease spread slowly and did not receive public attention until it was found in the United States in the 1980s. By that time, the disease had a larger base in the African continent than elsewhere.

Today, there are nearly 40 million individuals living with HIV or AIDS; of these, 25 million are in Sub-Sahara Africa. In 2009 around 1.3 million people in Sub-Sahara Africa died from AIDS and another 1.8 million people became infected with HIV.

Poverty is a factor in the impact that AIDS is having in Africa; individuals suffering from malnutrition are more susceptible to infection, and, once infected, succumb more quickly. Warfare is another factor, particularly where rape is used as a weapon of intimidation.

AIDS is spreading more rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean than anywhere outside of Sub-Sahara Africa and South-East Asia. The primary means of transmission in those regions is heterosexual activity, and as a result 40% of HIV infected persons in the Caribbean are women. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are the most severely affected areas, accounting for 85% of all infections. In 2005, UNICEF projected that there would soon be 56,000 children orphaned in the Dominican Republic because of the disease.

46 - International Aid and Bangladesh

It can seem petty to criticize the international aid efforts of North American and European nations. Several aid organizations, for example, have challenged the conclusions reached by Dambisa Moyo in her book, Dead Aid, in which she documents the failure of bilateral aid programs to alleviate poverty in Africa. While Moyo does tend to overstate her position, it is difficult to argue with her basic premise. She came to the same conclusion that the Canadian Senate came to in 2007 in its assessment of the effectiveness of Canada’s aid programs in Africa. Both determined that the impact of the aid Africa has received as been negligible in improving conditions in that continent. [It should be noted that both Moyo and the Senate focused on government-to-government aid programs].

There are several reasons why aid programs can be ineffective. The example of Bangladesh during the 1980s, to consider one of many similar situations, can be used to demonstrate how the best intentioned aid programs can have significant unforeseen consequences.

Bangladesh, previously East Pakistan, achieved independence from Pakistan in 1971, but was almost immediately overcome by civil strife, including a series of military coups. Some degree of stability was finally achieved when the army, under the leadership of General H. M. Ershad, took control of the government from 1982 until 1991.

About half of the gross domestic product of Bangladesh is based in agriculture. It remains a predominantly rural society, with 80% of the labor force involved in agriculture related activities. But the country has remained poor with a current (2010) per capita Gross National Product of approximately $1,700.

From 1973 through 1987, nearly a quarter of all the foreign aid Bangladesh received was in the form of long-term relief assistance, specifically food supplies, grains which had been sent from developed nations, like the United States, which had large grain surpluses. In point of fact, the grain was not given free of charge to the people of Bangladesh; rather it was sold to the Bengali government, although at reduced prices. And the immediate benefit was more to the advantage of the donor nation than the recipient; the grain surplus in the US was reduced, helping to maintain the price of grain in that country at relatively high levels.

The benefit to the Bengalis was more questionable. Once the government had purchased the grain, it had responsibility for distributing it. And they had particular priorities. About three-quarters of the grain went to members of the government, civil service, the police, the military, and the urban working class. Only 22% of the grain went to the 80% of the country’s population which were the rural poor, although they were the people suffering most acutely from malnutrition.

Further, the foreign grain shipment not only didn’t benefit the rural population, it even undercut the prices which Bengali farmers could charge for their own crops. And since the main grain shipped from the US was wheat, the aid also had the effect of promoting the consumption of a product that wasn’t–and never would be–produced locally.

Instead of promoting food self-reliance, the food aid program to Bangladesh weakened the local agriculture industry and created a dependency on foreign food sources.