International aid: giving people fish or teaching them how to fish?

by tjanssen | May 18, 2008 at 12:01 pm | 131 views | 2 comments

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There is a growing concern and dissatisfaction in the aid world. How well have we done in the past decades. Have we really followed our own reasonings and explanations..? Or were they mere justifications for our own existence?

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gerrypopplestone

at 02:56 on May 19th, 2008

Tjannsen,

I read your story and went to the original (it didn't say there who wrote the piece) and don't really agree with you about international aid falling. Ever since the G8 countries met in Gleneagles in 2005, they have had a commitment to increasing aid to the 0.7 % GDP as they originally committed and some countries (UK included) have kept their promise. The US still gives only 0.18% (I think that's right: Im quoting from memory). A major contributor to agricultural research and development projects is the World Bank, but their success rate in projects is usually as low as 20%. This does not encourage more investment in agriculture! One of the reasons for the rises in food prices has been that world stockpiles of many basic foodstuffs has been seriously depleted and of course more people are eating meat now which demand a lot of space to produce since beasts are comparative inefficient producers of the proteins, plus m,any other factors apart from the overall level of aid.

Gerrypops

tjanssen

at 00:33 on May 21st, 2008

Hi Gerry,

for an overview of the food crisis, have a read at The Perfect Storm, written by the same author, who is an (food) aid worker. The depleting stockpiles is a result, not a cause of the food crisis...

On the amount of funds the 1st world countries donate: that is not the real issue... It is where and how the aid is targetted: Giving people fish, or teaching them how to fish?

Anyway, this is all still the food crisis and the aid crisis, it still does not explain how to avoid it: I agree with you the Worldbank (and FAO for that matter) has been 'dishing' out funds left and right without the right accountability (I have been involved first hand in several Worldbank and FAO projects). However, in the food research (and that is first hand information too), the work the CGIAR has been doing, is recognized as an excellent return on investment.