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Does Aid Work? |
Introduction
The debates and controversies about aid effectiveness
and international development have become important issues for decades (Radelet
2006). For those who are sceptical of aid, there are number of fundamental
arguments and criticisms of aid offered, but it is also important to note that
most of the arguments are not opposed all forms of aid and the criticism is mostly
directed to governments and international organisations (Regan 2012). In
contrast, the defenders of aid argue that aid has been successfully contributed
in creating growth, skills development of the people in poor countries,
improving quality of services and infrastructure, and fulfilling basic rights
such as education and health (Riddel 2008 and Regan 2012).
In my opinion, the debates which
triggered by question “does aid work?” cannot be answered by single answer like
“yes” or “no”. The failure of some aid in some development programs or
countries cannot be generalized as failure of all forms of aid; moreover, the
successful of aid in some specific goals or countries cannot be justified as
successful of all forms of aid. Aid alone cannot be blame as a successful or
failure factor of development (Riddel 2014: 12). External factors such as: good
governance, law enforcement, leadership, security and human resources also
become important factors on the successful or failure of aid.
This article explores several key
arguments both from experts who are sceptical on aid and from supporters of aid
in development. This article also criticizes arguments from both sides, makes
appropriate comparison, and gives conclusion to answer the question “does aid
work” and what are the biggest difficulties in responding to this question.
“Aid
doesn’t work” arguments
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USAID Project in Africa |
One of the greatest development
economists, Peter Bauer, is known as his persistent critics of foreign aid
(Shleifer 2009: 379). He defined aid as “a phenomenon whereby poor people in
rich countries are taxed to support the lifestyles of rich people in poor
countries” (MacIver 2004: 166). This definition of aid was enough to be the
main reason for him to oppose foreign aid (Shleifer 2009: 380).
In addition, Easterly (2006) argues that
there are three legends on aid which followed by aid supporters but
unfortunately they are definitely not true: Firstly,
the statement that the poorest countries are dependent with aid-financed big
push and they cannot emerge without it, secondly,
poor growth of poor countries is because of poverty trap (they are poor only
because their parents were poor) and not because of bad government, thirdly, foreign aid give a big push to
poor countries to achieve their own sustainable growth. Statistical data on aid
and growth in Africa from 1970 to 1999 shows that the big push theory was wrong because the significant increase of
aid followed by the significant decrease of growth (Easterly 2006: 31). Moreover,
Easterly (2006: 245) also explores that foreign aid cannot achieve the end of
poverty and only in-country development growth in free markets mechanism can
achieve that.
“Aid
does work” arguments
In contrast, Sachs (2012) bluntly writes
that the critics of foreign aid are wrong, aid works and it saves lives. He
also contends that poverty can be ended by the year 2025 by the influence of
international development, by the influence of the rich to help the poor across
the borders (Sachs 2005). The task to end poverty can be achieved within the
commitment of rich countries to spend their 0.7% of the Gross National Product
(GNP) or only 7 cents out of every $10 income for helping poorest countries in
the world (Sachs 2005: 287). If Easterly (2006) believes that poverty trap is only
a legend, Sachs (2005: 289) trusts that poverty trap is the real problem of
poverty and success in ending the poverty trap is easier than it appears
because several reason such as: the number of extreme poverty have decreased
significantly into small proportion of total population, give more
responsibility to the richest of the rich, and availability of powerful tools
such as mobile phones and internet which make logistics system become easier.
According to Gates (2012), foreign aid
is the best way to address world’s development problem. The anti-foreign aid supporters
use wrong conclusion to support their contention that aid doesn’t work and
should be stopped across the world. There is also argument that the failure of
aid will still happen even when aid goes to intended recipients. This claim is
contradictory with the fact that in the past 50 years, the children who die
every year has declined from 20 million to about 8 million and the extreme
poverty has fallen by more than 50% (Gates 2012).
The
debate doesn’t work
The polarizing debates on the
effectiveness of aid and the question like “does aid work?” will become never
ending debate because each supporter has their own perspective. The
anti-foreign aid supporters emphasized their arguments with bunches of examples
of failure of aid in Africa without seeing its positive impacts to the rest of the
world such countries in Asia Pacific. On the other hand, the foreign aid
supporters emphasized their contention by always giving examples on health
issues and decreasing number of poverty.
After analysing the debates, Murphy
(2014) concludes that the current aid debate doesn’t work and is damaging and
the question “does aid work?” is unhelpful. The debate can be fixed by changing
the questions to analyse the specific conditions of successful foreign aid, how
to increase effectiveness of aid, and what kinds of aid should be stopped and
what kinds should be continued or replicated (Murphy 2014).
Conclusion
Finally, there is no single answer to the
question “does aid work?”, because in fact sometimes it works but sometimes it
doesn’t. The question also impossible to be answered by “yes” or “no” because
in the real development practice – for example in Indonesia – it can be seen
that for some cases, foreign aid does really work (for example: post-tsunami
recovery in Aceh) but in some cases it failed to achieve the goal (for example:
the significant increase of HIV/AIDS cases in Papua).
There are inevitably a lot of examples
explaining the failure and the successful of aid. Again, the failure of some aid
programs cannot be generalized as failure of all forms of aid; moreover, the
successful of some aid programs also cannot be justified as successful of all
forms of aid. Considering external of aid is also important in order to draw
conclusion because aid is not standing alone in the development. ***
By: Agung Wasono (March 2015)
References:
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The White Man’s Burden. New York: The
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(assessed 28 March 2015)
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A. (2009) Everybody know it doesn’t work, The
Guardian. 19 February 2009, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2009/feb/19/dambisa-moyo-dead-aid-africa
(assessed 27 March 2015)
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The Truth About Foreign Aid, The International
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(assessed 16 March 2015)
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(assessed 29 March 2015)
Radalet, S.
(2006) A Primer on Foreign Aid, Center
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80:20 in an Unequal Development World.
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(assessed 25 March 2015)
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________ (2005) The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities
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