Aid enabling problems

[smurphy]

This is going to be a very contentious issue and I was wondering if I should bother at all but............

Recently I was reading a number of articles concerning North Korea. Mainly that because of a humanitarian crisis the EU is sending large amounts of food aid to NK. And that all university students in NK are being forced to take a year off to work in construction projects in anticipation of the "Great Founding Leader"s 100th birthday. This begs the question why shouldn't a nation with a large and unnecessary weapons budget instead not divert resources for food for its people.

My second case refers to Africa in general, or Ethiopia in particular. The census in 1984 showed the population to be at 42 million. The same year there was a famine(which led to Live Aid) due to the fact the country lacked the resources to support its population. The population is nearly double that now, and even though the resource base has improved more than ten million Ethiopians are dependant on foreign food aid to survive. There is a similar case of population growth and dependence on aid in a lot of sub-saharan african countries.

What I am getting at is that rather than solving any problems, aid just drags them out. I know this sounds just terrible but the population of several african countries is just too big. And maybe aid to NK should be stopped or decreased. A free NK would be self sufficient and maybe what the country needs is a hungry and angry population for Kim Jung Ils power base to crumble.

I know I sound like an Arsehole but that is the way I see things. So anyone digress(or more unlikely not)? Should aid be something that is so easily given away without conditions which alleviate the problem in the long term?

[Alpha]

Recently I was reading a number of articles concerning North Korea. Mainly that because of a humanitarian crisis the EU is sending large amounts of food aid to NK. And that all university students in NK are being forced to take a year off to work in construction projects in anticipation of the "Great Founding Leader"s 100th birthday. This begs the question why shouldn't a nation with a large and unnecessary weapons budget instead not divert resources for food for its people.

It should. But we can't make it because North Korea is sovereign. I think the USA should divert resources from its large and unnecessary weapons budget ito assistance for its own and foreign people. The exact same principle applies.

My second case refers to Africa in general, or Ethiopia in particular. The census in 1984 showed the population to be at 42 million. The same year there was a famine(which led to Live Aid) due to the fact the country lacked the resources to support its population. The population is nearly double that now, and even though the resource base has improved more than ten million Ethiopians are dependant on foreign food aid to survive. There is a similar case of population growth and dependence on aid in a lot of sub-saharan african countries.

What I am getting at is that rather than solving any problems, aid just drags them out. I know this sounds just terrible but the population of several african countries is just too big. And maybe aid to NK should be stopped or decreased. A free NK would be self sufficient and maybe what the country needs is a hungry and angry population for Kim Jung Ils power base to crumble.

Aid didn't cause these problems. If you want to solve them, look at what caused them. A famine is NOT a situation where there is not enough food; it is a situation where people do not have the means to access that food. Grain was destroyed and exported FROM Ethiopia during the famine -- because people there did not have the means to pay the market price. A similar thing operates in my own country. New Zealand produces one third of the world's milk and dairy products. Because only a few places are suitable for such volumes of production, and the world population (and material living standards) continue to expand, the world price is increasing. Milk is not sold at a cheaper rate to New Zealanders even though we produce it, and put up with the negative consequences of intensive dairy farming. As such, many poor people cannot readily afford milk despite living in the country that produces it.

We have a 'milk famine' of sorts. People still survive because you don't need milk to live. We have public water, and other drinks are cheaper (...like Coke, which is one reason why being poor means you are more likely yo be overweight and unhealthy). My point is, 'developing' and 'developed' countries are not that different. Similar principles apply. Ethiopian people weren't starving for lack of (the production of) food. Lack of food was caused by a lack of means (or, as Amartya Sen called it, 'capabilities'), not 'too much aid'.

Moreover, aid is humanitarian. It does not purport to solve these problems, but rather to alleviate their human consequences. You're proposing a revolution in North Korea prompted by the starvation of hundreds of thousands or even millions. I respect the ends, but those means are frankly unacceptable.

Should aid be something that is so easily given away without conditions which alleviate the problem in the long term?

Tied aid deserves suspicion. What exactly are the 'conditions which alleviate the problem in the long term'? Who determines the conditionality attached to aid? Because aid is, by definition, given by those who have means to those who do not, the already-powerful (and wealthy) determine the means through which poor countries must accept this aid.

I find that unnacceptable, and believe tied aid (not aid generally) is the reason that the underdeveloped world remains underdeveloped. To get a loan from the IMF or World Bank, trade liberalisation is a common conditionality. But consider that for each $1 generated through international trade, the countries that already produce things will be the ones that benefit. Developed countries gain $0.75 of that generated $1. The LDCs gain just $0.03. Tying aid to trade liberalisation, for instance, will only make the world MORE unequal -- NOT less.

However this is not true in all instances. I do think aid should be tied to 'good governance', for instance. Just... easier said than done. And humanitarian concerns should always override the political.