Editorial: When aid is misused

Sydney
1 Dec 2002

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Editorial: When aid is misused

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Editorial: When aid is misused

It’s hard to credit, but giving money away can do more harm than good - at least when it comes to aid to Third World countries. For example, more than $500 billion in aid has been given to African countries since the 1960s, sometimes with tragic results. James Shikwati, director of the InterRegion Economic Network in Kenya, told delegates at the recent World Trade Organisation meeting in Sydney that aid needed to be narrowly targeted or it else it risked being stolen, diverted or misused in some way.

He provided delegates with a litany of sad examples. He pointed out, for instance, that between 1981 and 1996 aid to Africa averaged around $US19 billion annually.

And during this time nearly half the countries in Africa experienced violent conflict between government and opposition groups. Four million people died as a result and a further three million were made refugees.

Aid gives untrustworthy leaders the resources to engage in violent repression, said Mr Shikwati.

Although his speech was mainly concerned with encouraging trade, as trade is more effective than aid in overcoming poverty, Mr Shikwati has incidentally hit on a major cause of the refugee problem here.

And the problem of misused aid is still with us; food aid sent to Zimbabwe is reportedly directed to Robert Mugabe’s supporters rather than to their starving compatriots.

So, what to do? Mr Shikwati, who is based in Nairobi, suggests aid go towards technical training, for example, and that emergency aid be in the form of food or medicine - not money.

Lest we fear we are in danger of becoming too suspicious here, we might heed Jesus’ words to his disciples about the world at large: “I am sending you like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

His warning is relevant here as the doing of Christian good works is one of the ways of spreading the word - by means of good example. And we have to be aware that those we deal with are not all good people.

It is good to learn then that at least one Catholic aid agency, Caritas, is becoming as “shrewd as snakes”.

Our back page story on Caritas in Papua New Guinea details how proposed aid projects are assessed. This is to ensure Caritas does not repeat the mistakes the Australian Government has made in giving aid, i.e. simply handing over cheques and leaving it “up to those in charge to distribute the money”. The greedy and corrupt distributed the money to their hip pockets, leaving the needy to stay needy.