A friend sent this to me this morning. Fascinating (not least because of the excellent drawings!). The main point is that charity (development, aid) is not bad, but doing charity using money made in the systems that make the poor suffer is immoral (and ridiculous, when you think about it). These interventions are simply “remedies” that prolong the actual disease. I also really liked this extract: “It is much easier to have sympathy with suffering than have sympathy with thought.” I think that’s something you could say big pushers like Enough in their blood minerals campaign ascribe to.

Benefit of having a library at your fingertips (and a good one), Autesserre’s book came in yesterday. Now in my hungry possession. I’ve only managed to digest Chapter 1, but my first impression might dictate my thoughts on the rest of the book, or at least influence my reading.

The concept of organizational culture (or corporate culture) is inherent to any “industry” – whether it be aid or banking or being a professor. Each profession and its environment comes with rules – norms – that have been developed over a long period of time. Did we think aid or development was an exception to the rule?

@tmsruge’s first comment to me is that the aid industry is so worried about its own survival that it leaves no room for innovation. I’m not really sure that is the key issue. Unfortunately, I think humans do as humans do and we often end up with the same organizational product.

Finally, are people naive enough to think “do-gooders” get a free pass to not be seen as controlling and hierarchical as the next human? Anyways, it seems like a pretty smooth read so I would urge you to dig in and let me know what you think.

From Taking the Rules of the Game Seriously: Mainstreaming Justice in Development in the World Bank’s Justice for the Poor Program:

Beyond just correcting failures in the conception and practice of justice-sector reform work, development needs to address the larger issue that most development processes fail to even consider rules systems,9 despite the routine invocation of popular expressions endorsing the importance of “understanding the rules of the game.” Rules underpin all aspects of everyday life and are the key to understanding how conflicts form, escalate, or get resolved. Yet, development, by design, puts all these rules systems in flux; it reorders society and alters the distribution of rights, responsibilities, and resources. Moreover, it alters social relations, especially those pertaining to gender, occupation, and the relative political strength of particular social groups. As such, it is inherently accompanied by conflict. By establishing legitimate spaces and processes for negotiating competing interests, aspirations, and interpretations, development actors can potentially become part of the solution to such conflicts.

OXFAM has recently launched its “Channel 16.” Thus far, it looks like a platform for OXFAM to aggregate information on a few specific emergency areas they work in (Afghanistan, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda) while offering limited means of the public (abroad and in the field) of getting involved via social media. What do you think?

Thus far, on Twitter, @gentlemandad observed that the site (and I concur, this jumped at me right away) only offers one number to SMS reports too. Whether you are tapping an international humanitarian audience, a general audience, or the people affected by conflict, I would think the site needs an SMS number per emergency country at minimum. From the same observer, apparently the IPadio contact numbers are not terribly useful if you are not based in Western Europe or the US. Once again, a good amount of people who might be interested in these OXFAM campaigns will be based outside this region and often active in or around these emergency zones.

Another observation I would make at first glance: the front of the website is looking primarily for involvement, but not engagement. For example, the first headline “Join the Call to Put Afghan People first” is a voice-petition. I find that my eyes skim over “calls to action” regularly now, but the moment someone starts asking the Twitter and otherwise audience about a specific issue seeking feedback, the ball really gets rolling. We’re moving progressively towards a conversation where the final product – in some cases – would be a (incredibly successful) petition. Getting people’s blood boiling and minds moving.

What do you think?

Finally getting around to reading this document. From the Development: In Aid of New Approaches section (Chapter 9):

Remittances add up to half of aid budgets even within less-developed countries. One can’t help but wonder whether our best development program can be found in Open Canada’s liberal immigration policies; not only do immigrants get better lives here, they also send home money—and ideas and values, too.

Excellent article in The Walrus on Canada’s rather lackluster international performance. Quite a large section is dedicated to questions around Canada’s aid budget and its rather particular disbursement with competing interests between reducing poverty and investing in long-term regional trade.

The second defining feature of Canada, its multiculturalism, may be contributing to one of the most frequently criticized aspects of our foreign policy: our fragmented approach to development assistance. Influenced in part by the need to placate various diaspora and interest groups, Canada has developed one of the world’s most dispersed aid budgets. To illustrate, compare Canada and the Netherlands, each of which gave about 2 percent of the world’s direct aid in 2008. While the Netherlands donated to sixty-five countries, Canada spread its contribution among more than a hundred recipients. Such a spread makes it difficult to develop local knowledge and contacts, and so to use aid dollars effectively. Small-scale programming also places a heavy coordination and cost burden on the very countries we are trying to help, and increases the costs and management requirements for Canada. And the contribution we make is often so tiny that it cannot make a difference in even the poorest countries. Take Angola, which received 0.1 percent of its aid from Canada in 2008, essentially little more than a rounding error from both countries’ perspectives. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has estimated that during that year, sixty-seven of Canada’s 109 aid relationships were similarly futile — a greater number and higher ratio of “non-significant” relationships than for any other member.

I come at this from the humblest of perspectives. The following is based on personal experience and study, which, in the grand scheme of things, is nothing compared to the experts out there – most importantly, the Africans who receive aid and then the professionals and academics who keep the industry on its toes. Among others, see Aid Watch, Texas in Africa, Project Diaspora and so forth.

Dear Jason Sadler,

There are already a lot of intelligent people who have criticized your idea and offered valuable input. It would be very, very wise to take advice from them. This includes Texas in Africa, Project Diaspora (TMS Ruge), Good Intentions are Not Enough and so on.

Regardless, as you are soliciting thoughts, I would also like to weigh in. I have copied one of my colleagues here (Joseph Okumu, Executive Director of BOSCO Uganda), as well as TMS Ruge, both Ugandans who can help further this discussion in their own right.

For those of us who have worked in the continent as foreigners (and I am limited to East Africa – which holds some of the countries you indicated would receive t-shirts), this initiative – put bluntly – is a regretful waste of your time and money, others’ time and money, and the resources that go into shipping products and paying customs to/in another continent. And, as you seem a person aware of the value of time, perhaps you might be able to direct your resources into better and more informed investments.

There is a massive used clothing market here in northern Uganda where I live right now – and I’ve seen the same thing across the East African region. While this market perhaps benefited from the original dump of clothing aid which offered products to sell as a derivative, its expansion – and thus the provision of new jobs – is equally hampered by these free products.

A continued aid dump limits local innovation and opportunity. Instead of working towards locally sourcing (new jobs) products to make X and Y pieces of clothing, these countries absorb the free-hand outs from elsewhere and thus fail to develop new industries that would offer additional employment and income. Most people I know here are eager to implement new businesses that rely on locally made resources (which has the potential to be cheaper) and begin successful local, regional and international trade. Why not help out instead of hinder?

You might argue that there are people who are so poor that the above has no relevance to them – they just want their children to have a shirt and shorts on at all times. Well, this is somewhat true. However, these are the extreme poor and are best helped through specific organizations that have a long lasting relationship with these fragile communities. Either way, these communities will take your shirts – and then sell them to a used clothing broker to cover more immediate needs like health costs and food.

On top of the other suggestions you have received, perhaps you could consider using donated funds to fuel micro finance (or full scale industry) initiatives that encourage local production through more experienced organizations or businesses (Acumen, for example).

Another example. There are hundreds of fabulous tailors in the used clothing market here who, instead of selling used clothing for little profit with little potential for expansion, make beautiful dresses, skirts, shirts and otherwise from regionally-sourced cloth. This both leaves room for innovation and provides jobs to people around the continent in clothing production. Perhaps you could invest here.

You could also consider visiting the region before going full-speed ahead with this project and meeting with organizations like BRAC, which are very experienced in economic development and were built from their own struggle against poverty and conflict in areas like Bangladesh.

Personally, I think the best way to measure a project’s worth is to determine whether or not your project and yourself will be necessary in the long-run. You should always have in mind that building local capacity means handing the reins over to a local person in the country of origin. You should also have in mind that becoming irrelevant means building the skills and capacity within a country to achieve the same goal. In this case, 1millionshirts is trying to solve a problem that cannot be solved externally, but only through targeted local development that gives people new jobs and trains them in marketable skills thus reducing poverty.

An onslaught of criticism to an idea you work really hard to build and implement is not fun. However, the bigger picture should make us all wiser and humbler. With continued dependency on aid and free hand-outs, these African countries you target might never emerge from poverty and make the same strides as emerging economic powers. Perhaps you could read Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid, which is a good, if not simplistic, introduction to this fact.

Lastly, and I find this quite funny, I used to visit Toy Market in Nairobi. It’s a huge clothing market with hundreds and hundreds of used clothing stalls. At the peak of the day, the most common customer is a foreigner, re-purchasing the clothes that some well-intentioned American donated. This applies to clothing markets in Nairobi, northern Uganda and beyond. Worth a laugh, no?

[NOTE: There are a myriad of reasons why some countries are failing to emerge from poverty. The above is a simplistic snapshot of one such factor. For more information, please consult those who have dedicated their lives to trying to understand and influence the process of poverty. There are too many such people/organizations to name, but do note Yunus, BRAC and founders, Kiva (despite recent controversy), the Aga Khan Development Network, Samasource and Acumen Fund. All come with their own baggage, but are worth delving into if you want to move beyond the surface argument.]

1. Not surprisingly, Canada is slashing its foreign aid budget. Can we really blame them? As one less than eloquent Canadian said:

The less Canada has to do with the u n , the better. As near as can be see, the u n is bagman for various propaganda machines designed to redistribute western wealth by any means possible to corrupt governments with no desire to do any thing for anyone other than themselves.

2. And maybe we are better off withdrawing. William Easterly gives us a snapshot of the “worst kept secret in aid” – the recipient corrupt government controls the donor.

3. But, one of these corrupt governments is now being investigated by the ICC. Ocampo now has permission to investigate senior Kenyan politicians.

4. And there are ideas for how to improve aid. Owen lists Lawrence Haddad’s (IDS) top priorities. So where are these priorities being implemented?

@bill_easterly asked me to expand on my criticism of the Aid Watch blog.

I’m coming at this from the perspective of a student. While I work in the development industry, I have neither the responsibility nor knowledge to place myself as an expert or a well-placed critic.

As a student, I am always looking for information to build on my relative lack of experience. William Easterly, along with other top names in development, is a logical choice. He has explored alternatives to traditional development and, along with people like Dambisa Moyo, has injected some much-needed self-criticism into development overall.

His popular book, White Man’s Burden, as well as articles and public appearances have all helped inform the development debate. However, his blog does not do the same service.

Perhaps Aid Watch was meant as an outlet for shallow satire among the occasional interesting link and comment. There are probably many reasons why it took this form. Easterly is busy and there is no time to expand on the cloaked-criticism he makes; satire gets more hits and requires less thoughtful (time-consuming) writing; drawing on positive examples of development (or private sector, for that matter) as a way to showcase where development should be does not sell etc.

Whatever the reason, I personally (along with others and others) find this approach to critiquing the aid industry (which sometimes seems lazy) not terribly helpful and rather discouraging. Posts like this (a fictitious situation that highlights the oddness of poverty porn) and this only leave me wondering: What we could be doing better? What changes are necessary? What alternatives are there?

I get that a sense of humour is necessary and refreshing, but without combining humour and new information/suggestions/inspiration etc. I fail to see the value of the Aid Watch blog.

What frustrates me the most is that William Easterly undoubtedly has the knowledge, contacts and audience to make a regular impact in the development field by offering new ideas and well-argued criticism on Aid Watch that underline the basic structural and ideological problems of development in a mature fashion.

Others with equal time constraints (but unfortunately more limited audiences as they are not as widely published or read as Easterly) manage to do it. Take Alanna Shaikh, Texas in Africa (whose regular insight into Rwanda is fantastic), Aid Thoughts and Owen Barder as examples of what Aid Watch could be offering.

There’s a fine balance between retaining an audience that enjoys regular, limited commentary and those that want some new, in-depth information. To achieve this, I would suggest integrating some of the following in a 500-word + format:

1. Deconstructions of particular development projects. Tearing it apart and re-building an improved model or simply explaining how finances could be re-directed to have a more tangible impact;

2. Features on “positive” development/private sector initiatives or approaches that can be integrated into mainstream development.

3. Features on successful initiatives developed and run by those living in harsh conditions that have lifted communities out of poverty.

4. Highlights of private-sector projects that have impacted low-income communities (other than micro finance!).

5. More guest posts from inspiring development or private-sector individuals that are invested in changing the development status quo (or are simply well versed in being successful in any environment).

6. Better informed highlights of projects like this one that are truly revolutionary to communities. Giving these guys encouraging publicity is also important.

7. Maybe a bit too time-consuming (hire another co-author?) but regular weekly or monthly Q&A sessions via Twitter or other mediums about the aid industry and/or recent articles. This gets the audience engaged in some of that low-blow satire.

Latest article on World Bank’s You Think:

My first reaction to AMREF’s, Why We Need A Fourth Year in Katine, was “of course you need a fourth year in Katine!” Development doesn’t happen in four years, let alone five or ten. Aid dollars spent over a short period of time with little follow-up support are often wasted.