Aid vs. Development

When life gives you "Yemen"s, you don't need to make Yemen-aid.  This phrase, cleverly crafted by an opposing delegate at my most recent Model UN conference, brings up an interesting point that the Glenbrook Academy has been at least tangentially examining for the last few months.

A presentation by Dr. Dambisa Moyo at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs caused me to seriously question the value of humanitarian aid.  Her argument was compelling, and essentially boils down to the claim  that giving a man a fish makes him less likely to learn to get his own fish in the future.  But could humanitarian aid, which is so widely supported in the United States, really be detrimental to the receiving countries?

America's involvement with Sub-Saharan Africa presents us with the opportunity to measure the impact of humanitarian aid.  According to this report by the Congressional Research Service, almost 75% (over $5.8 billion) of the proposed budget for aid to Sub-Saharan Africa was humanitarian, while only 15% would go to economic development.  Policies that vastly favor humanitarian aid over any other form are not new to the United States, but despite this we see very little "developing" going on in many of the countries we give aid to.

The primary reason for this is that humanitarian aid does nothing to help the local economies, and in some cases can destroy them entirely.  How can local farmers hope to compete with millions of dollars worth of free food?  Dr. Moyo argued that humanitarian aid can cause political problems as well.  Receiving charity can easily be interpreted as weakness in the central government, eroding its legitimacy and the pride of the citizens.  Furthermore, humanitarian aid often doesn't get to its intended destination.  In Somalia, American care packages would be seized by militia groups and sold for large profits to allies throughout the near-failed-state.

But what is the alternative to giving humanitarian aid?  We cannot simply abandon the countries that struggle to feed their own people.  Instead of giving them free food and supplies, however, the United States should take the path that has made the Chinese very popular in Africa (according to Dr. Moyo): focus on economic development.  Create economic infrastructure, build roads, build schools, give the countries the tools they need to learn to fish with the support of the international community.  Then they will be able to break their reliance on international aid and begin the path towards "developed-nation" status.

So, when faced with a country like Yemen- wracked with conflict, a weak central government, and a practically non-existent economy- the solution is not to give Yemen (humanitarian) aid.  Instead, we must help Yemen aid itself.