US Food Aid Stupidity

[peterAustralia]

Hello all

This is not a US bashing thread. Instead the intent is to give some understanding to some issues that have been in the news.
Have been reading a book called Enough, why the worlds poorest starve in an age of plenty, written by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman.

It is an excellent book, filled to the brim with information. It goes into how US biologists and plant specialists were able to bread hybrid corn for the Mexican countryside, greatly increasing yields. Larger yields mean that people do not have to go hungry. However it is not all good news

Subsidies to US cotton growers were causing the price of cotton to be artificially low. Now the average US cotton grower has assets of $800,000. Furthermore the lower prices for cotton were costing producers in Mali (about the poorest country in the world) about $40 million per year. US Aid was $50 million dollars per year. So the African farmers feel that the US gives with one hand and takes with the other. About half of all children in Mali are undernourished.

Another thing happened in the 1983 famine in Ethiopia. What people did not realise was that 1981 and 1982 were bumper years for the Ethiopian harvest. Trouble was that with so much grain prices crashed from $10 per 100kg to $2 per 100kg (cheap by any measure). Additionally there were not the warehouses available to store grain and it rotted, additionally there were not the good roads to transport grain from areas of Ethiopia where there was plenty of food (in the South) to the North where people were dying. There were not also the futures markets developed so that farmers could get a decent price for their grain. After 2 years of low prices the farmers responded by planting less food (maize etc). The more they grain they planted the more money they lost, so they looked after themselves and decided to grow less grain (there is a logic in this)

Now when the 1983 famine took hold, grain was shipped from the US to Ethiopia, and then via truck to the NW of Ethiopia. The trouble was that these trucks were passing warehouses full of grain that could not be sold. The aid agencies would get grain from the US for free, but not buy the grain that was very close by (even though it could be bought very cheaply)

The farmers sentiment was this... sure if people need grain, then give them money and let them buy it, be that from the US or locally. But please buy the grain that is available locally first, before importing grain from overseas. Locally they had around 150,000t of high quality grain in storage, and they did need around 2 million tonnes.

Legislation in the US apparently says that they can ship US grain, but cant use that money to buy grain that is available locally. In 1983, the US spent $500m on food aid in Ethiopia, but only $5m in developing agriculture in the country. Food Aid to overseas countries increases the prices that US farmers get for their grain, and is thus popular at home, it can however totally screw up local economies.


Now since that time food prices have increased. Grain is being converted to ethanol for cars (dumb idea in my opinion) and this increases prices. I am not saying that the US has bad intent, they do many good things, but they also do many bad things. The Europeans are not much better, subsiding their sugar beat farmers in countries like Finland, artificially lowering the cost of sugar, whereas poorer countries that export sugar suffer.

I would like to point out that the Europeans and Americans have other exports that food. They export machinery, planes, medicines, software, armaments, high tech equipment etc etc. Poorer countries cant export commodities like this, all they can do is export food to raise money. Lower food prices mean less money.

Many poor countries have done some very stupid things. Corruption is rampant in many nations, and they are not without blame. However it is not always simple. Ethiopia and Somalia were supported by the US and Russia respectively, before switching over. After switching over the US supported Somalia and Russia supported Ethiopia. Before switching over the US goaded Ethiopia to invade Somalia which gave rise to instability in the region.

To sum up

It is complex

Poorer countries do bad things
but very often rich countries screw over poor countries as well

(the book is an excellent read)

[Paul Pless]

It is complex

Exceedingly.

Thank you for the post. A much more interesting subject than Romney's IRA.

[skuthorp]

Much government aid is what we call "boomerang aid", in that the money donated is spent in buying stuff from it's country of origin rather than locally or the cheapest available.
There are other criminal stupidities too. Under the aegis of the World Bank the Italian government set up a very successful tomato growing and canning project in Ethiopia I think. Then the same government subsidised Italian growers to such an extent that the project failed for want of a market. People starved and faith was lost, stupidity rules.

[peterAustralia]

A little bit more on this subject

Ethiopia has a lot of highlands and it is the source of the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile supplies 90 percent of the water for the Nile downstream. The longer White Nile that starts a long way away in lake Victoria only provides 10 percent of the water flow.

Now Ethiopia would like to harvest some of this water (not a lot, just some) for irrigation. With irrigation they can grow more food. The trouble is that Egypt gets very annoyed at the thought of anyone else using 'their' water, despite the fact that Ethiopians are starving to death, and Egyptians whilst poor, do have enough to eat.

When it comes to harvesting water, the usual way is dams. Now large damns are expensive and have downside. The idea was to have a lot of smaller damns though. These damns would only harvest a small fraction of the water going downstream. Still again Egypt is not happy, becuase Ethiopia would be taking 'their' water. The funny thing is that people in Ethiopia have been chopping down all the trees in teh country (well not all of them,,, but a lot of them) that there is a lot of soil erosion and silt.

Now all this silt will eventually clog up the Aswan high dam. This will stuff up Egypts agriculture.

So not only would small dams provide more water and hence food for the Ethiopians, but it would help out Egypt by reducing the silt going into their huge Aswan dam on the Nile.

Now the US and other agencies will not fund these small damns as this will upset Egypt, and they dont want to do that. Egypt being a US ally in the region in terms of geopolitics. Local farmers would like to finance small projects like these themselves (would also provide renewable low carbon footprint electricity) however finance in that country is not well developed and the interest for loans is in the order of 33 percent per annum.

A couple of posts up I gave the $500 million in food aid and $5million in agricultural developement aid. What I forgot to mention was that this is an ongoing process. It keeps stuffing up the local economy, reducing incentive for local farmers to cultivate more land or to invest in grain storage, irrigation etc. Ethiopia has only 500,000 acres of land under irrigation, yet Egypt has 5 million acres.

A couple of other things
Farmers in the EU are paid three times the price for sugar beet than is the market price (they even grow it in Finland of all places)
About 80 percent of cotton grown in the US is exported.
The continual giving of food to Ethiopia creates a culture of dependency, the US would be better off in my opinion of giving those starving money, and letting them buy food from the local area.
The US food aid program is very popular with US farmers as it keeps prices high. US farmers have a lot of political clout.

The whole thing is a stuff up. Everyone knows markets are more efficient, yet when it comes to food too many people do not seem to think it best to let the market work things out.

I will finish up on a case study

Years ago India was always having famines, up until the 1950s.
Eventually they stopped food subsidies and a planned economy and let the market rule.
Now India is still a poor country, however there are not the huge famines in India now where they used to be so common
India economy is growing, the middle class is growing. They do not let food aid into the country.
There are still a lot of very very poor people in India, but generally the great majority of people have enough to eat, and every year millions of people come out of poverty and progress into the middle class.

In my opinion, letting markets rule gives a better outcome for the poorest people. I give the proviso that when people are starving, then giving them a modest amoutn of money, be that $20 or $30 to buy food is a much better and more efficient use of resources that screwing up other Nations economies by dumping subsidised food into very poor countries

the end of my rant....

[skuthorp]

It was known that the Aswan would silt up before it was built, if I remember rightly western advice and lending authorities (the World Bank?) would not finance it and it was built largely by the Russians under cold war circumstances. A lot of western money was however spent raising a monument, Abu Simbel?, above the water level.
Government donated aid is very seldom about creating real solutions and as has been explained is often just a disguised internal subsidy.

[hanleyclifford]

It has taken too long but there is now in the US some strong sentiment for ending those subsidies.

[Paul Pless]

Nice rant Ian. The book however is about Africa, and the inability to get food to markets was discussed specifically in the opening post with regards to Ethiopia.

[The Bigfella]

Posts 3 & 5 were about "boomerang aid". Post 1 was all about 30 year old data.

But... don't let the facts get in the way of an automated attack response.

[Paul Pless]

fair enough, i've retracted my comments that were directed towards you

[The Bigfella]

fair enough, i've retracted my comments that were directed towards you

Um, really? Why? There was nothing obnoxious or erroneous in them.... other than calling me a US-basher. I thought they were spot on.

Don't be a wimp, lad. Stand up and be counted.

.... and just what are those "obvious links" that F. refers to?

[Paul Pless]

Some people just aren't worth arguing with. Besides, I'd like to read the book.

[The Bigfella]

Too true Paul.... and yes, there are some interesting ideas in there. I couldn't agree more with the concept of buying local.... however there is value to be had from having foreign advisers working with locals to drive things forward. We have some members of this forum with considerable experience of it btw. Hell's bells, I've even done some myself.
... and Sophie, yep... governments around the world have recognised my brilliance and beaten a path to my door.

[skipper68]

Very good post. I would also have you look at what has happened in India, after Monsanto and the government there convinced the farmers to use their "Magic" GM seeds.

Monsanto’s GMO Seeds Contributing to Farmer Suicides Every 30 Minutes. April 4, 2012

farm3 220x137 Monsantos GMO Seeds Contributing to Farmer Suicides Every 30 MinutesIn what has been called the single largest wave of recorded suicides in human history, Indian farmers are now killing themselves in record numbers. It has been extensively reported, even in mainstream news, but nothing has been done about the issue. The cause? Monsanto’s cost-inflated and ineffective seeds have been driving farmers to suicide, and is considered to be one of the largest — if not the largest — cause of the quarter of a million farmer suicides over the past 16 years.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/monsantos-...#ixzz20z2ERAg7

[QUOTE]When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year.

But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That's because GM seeds contain so- called 'terminator technology', meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own.

As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death. [/QUOTEThe Evil empire that Monsanto is...

[B_B]

In regard to food issues in Ethiopia and the Sudan in the '80's the problem was exacerbated by a push towards industrial farming by donor nations.

Canada, for example, donated huge tractors, combines and other machinery to Sudan in the late '70's and early '80's in order to improve Sudans grain production and cotton crop and thereby, foreign earnings, which would be used to pay off loans they'd taken out to finance other 'improvement' schemes.

A move to large scale farming necessitated the removal of small farmers from their land - much like in Britain with enclosure, these farmers moved to towns where they couldn't find work and ate the seeds they'd have used for planting, or moved to less fertile land where their hardscrabble existence became more so.

Along comes a perfect storm of a cotton price crash, farmers with no land, no jobs, no seeds, and a drought. Along comes Bob Geldoff.

To add insult to injury, Canada built a huge bakery in Khartoum which would produce thousands of loaves of bread a day. 'We must supply a market for the grain our new farming methods are producing'. Of course this puts hundreds of small home based bakers out of business. A little while later the bakery starts breaking down, but by now CIDA's moved on to some other project, and there isn't the infrastructure to repair, and there isn't the foreign earnings to repair (cotton price drop), so it sits empty. The home bakers have all eaten all they had to keep from starving.

So, in a space of 5 or 6 years, Canada (amongst other donors) managed to put Sudan in a place that it was impossible for it to fend for itself during a drought. It never recovered.




Ian,
In 2007 we were in Botswana and saw a 'show home' built by CIDA (Canada International Development Agency) - it was being sold as a sustainable house. Prominently displayed were DOW rigid styrofoam panels, dual pane windows, and other bric-a-brac all "Made in Canada" (the air conditioner was made in China, I assume). The coolest unairconditioned houses (as in 'not hot' houses) I've been in were mud walled with thatch roofing, really sustainable, really cheap, just not 'modern' enough.

It hasn't changed all that much.

[The Bigfella]

In regard to food issues in Ethiopia and the Sudan in the '80's the problem was exacerbated by a push towards industrial farming by donor nations.

Canada, for example, donated huge tractors, combines and other machinery to Sudan in the late '70's and early '80's in order to improve Sudans grain production and cotton crop and thereby, foreign earnings, which would be used to pay off loans they'd taken out to finance other 'improvement' schemes.

A move to large scale farming necessitated the removal of small farmers from their land - much like in Britain with enclosure, these farmers moved to towns where they couldn't find work and ate the seeds they'd have used for planting, or moved to less fertile land where their hardscrabble existence became more so.

Along comes a perfect storm of a cotton price crash, farmers with no land, no jobs, no seeds, and a drought. Along comes Bob Geldoff.

To add insult to injury, Canada built a huge bakery in Khartoum which would produce thousands of loaves of bread a day. 'We must supply a market for the grain our new farming methods are producing'. Of course this puts hundreds of small home based bakers out of business. A little while later the bakery starts breaking down, but by now CIDA's moved on to some other project, and there isn't the infrastructure to repair, and there isn't the foreign earnings to repair (cotton price drop), so it sits empty. The home bakers have all eaten all they had to keep from starving.

So, in a space of 5 or 6 years, Canada (amongst other donors) managed to put Sudan in a place that it was impossible for it to fend for itself during a drought. It never recovered.




Ian,
In 2007 we were in Botswana and saw a 'show home' built by CIDA (Canada International Development Agency) - it was being sold as a sustainable house. Prominently displayed were DOW rigid styrofoam panels, dual pane windows, and other bric-a-brac all "Made in Canada" (the air conditioner was made in China, I assume). The coolest unairconditioned houses (as in 'not hot' houses) I've been in were mud walled with thatch roofing, really sustainable, really cheap, just not 'modern' enough.

It hasn't changed all that much.

You might ask Sophie about where most of those dopey sorts of projects originate from. Lovely NGO's and UN sponsored sh!t.... staffed by idiots who haven't got a clue.

I've just put a report in to a client on exactly that last issue you raised... so its a bit inappropriate for me to comment.

[B_B]

You might ask Sophie about where most of those dopey sorts of projects originate from. Lovely NGO's and UN sponsored sh!t.... staffed by idiots who haven't got a clue.

I've just put a report in to a client on exactly that last issue you raised... so its a bit inappropriate for me to comment.

Well, there is no way no how the NGO idiots get funding from Western 'donors' without the Western donors' permission.

Case in point; there is an NGO based in Canada which had done some decent work in Africa wrt health issues, women's health issues. They, at some point, made it known they were displeased with the Canadian Gov't's policy change from 'health' (OMG condoms!) to 'abstinence' and other worrying trends...funding cut off. Do as the donor gov't says or else. You can blame the NGO's and the UN till you're blue in the face but these organizations carry out the mandate set for them by donor Governments. The UN, especially, is not an independent organization - it's a foreign policy tool used extensively by the veto powers to further their disparate agendas.

Your second paragraph appears to contradict your previous assertions that all the examples cited were 30 yrs old and that things have changed.

[MiddleAgesMan]

... and Sophie, yep... governments around the world have recognised my brilliance and beaten a path to my door.

You forgot the emoticons. Your statement requires several, IMO, starting with the sarcasm one, the (missing) tongue-in-cheek one. It could certainly use the wink-wink one as well.

[MiddleAgesMan]

....Not just a hypocrite without principles but a hypocrite engaged in a parasitic relationship with all that he so widely condemns....

Verily, assuming there's an ounce of truth to his assertion about governments beating a path to his door. But do you really want to make that assumption?

Remember the Brontes!

[peterAustralia]

If I may

I am not opposed to aid. In many many occasions it does fantastic stuff. Aid for building roads, building hospitals, training technical people etc, and 1001 other things are fantastic.

The situation with Ethiopia is not 30 years old. It was going on year in year out from 1983 to 2003, that is until at least 9 years ago.
The situation of trucks of US grain driving through the town on Nazareth in Ethiopia, whilst local farmers could not sell their grain dated from 2003.
When aid is spent well, it does amazing things, I am for this, not against it.


What I am against is when aid is done badly. When food is dumped into a country it depresses prices. Local farmers have no incentive to invest in irrigation, fertilizer, or even harverst their fields on occasion. What I am for is good aid. In my view when people are starving, it would be more cost effective to give them money and let them buy food locally. The cost of transporting grain from US to Ethiopia (shipping, handling, road transport etc) is often over 200 dollars a tonne in transport costs alone. Local grain could be bought for much less.

In 2003 there were food shortages in Northern Kenya. Farmers in southern ethiopia wanted to sell their excess grain there, but they were not able to because free food was taking markets away.

It is true that since 2003 food prices have increased.

Many aid agencies do fantastic things. I give 30 dollars a month to UNHCR (have done so for years), not a lot but somehting.

My point is that although the intent of food aid is good, when it is handled badly it stuffs up the economy.

I gave the example of India, a very very poor country. Aid agencies there are not handing out food for free, many people are still poor, but generally the great majority of people have enough food to eat. This then frees up aid agencies to do other work, such as building hospitals, building roads, training staff, funding for pharmaceuticals etc etc. These 4 examples are to me excellent and fantastic uses of aid, and they dont stuff up the local markets.

Please understand that I am not against aid (it saves millions of lives) I just want it to be done well.

[B_B]

Your second paragraph appears to contradict your previous assertions that all the examples cited were 30 yrs old and that things have changed.

Not in the slightest. It relates to a 2007 example from a subsequent post.

Umm, you said things have changed. I gave an example from 2007 which showed things hadn't changed. You said you were writing a report about the issue I'd raised (I cited an example of where, in 2007, the donor nations were still more interested in exporting their goods than in developing local responses to issues)...which, to me, means you were writing a report about how you witnessed some aspect of same (donors not worrying about solving local issues with local resources, rather worrying about exporting their brand) - i.e. things haven't changed all that much. Which was my point.

If you meant something else please enlighten.


Other examples from the '70's/'80's:
CIDA spent a ton of money building a road in Zambia. Nice road. However, 'tied aid' being all the rage the equipment had to be sourced in Canada...of course Zambians drive on the 'wrong' side of the road, they were familiar with Bedfords, Mercedes Benz's, Renault's, and other European vehicles.

The Fords and Chevy's ended up on the side of the road, the cost to build a parts and repair infrastructure for several dozen vehicles far outweighed the benefit. The road got built, but not without huge logistical issues (i.e. additional funds the Canadians sure as shooting didn't come up with), and with very little, if any, lasting legacy besides the road itself. The equipment to build the road didn't last long either (same issues) so there was zero additional spinoff (no additional roads, no ability to repair the one which was built etc.), no legacy, to spending all that money, besides the one single lonely road and a lot of Detroit rust.

Damned African dictators. Why can't they just get their act together? <sarcasm>

[The Bigfella]

Umm, you said things have changed. I gave an example from 2007 which showed things hadn't changed. You said you were writing a report about the issue I'd raised (I cited an example of where, in 2007, the donor nations were still more interested in exporting their goods than in developing local responses to issues)...which, to me, means you were writing a report about how you witnessed some aspect of same (donors not worrying about solving local issues with local resources, rather worrying about exporting their brand) - i.e. things haven't changed all that much. Which was my point.

If you meant something else please enlighten.


Other examples from the '70's/'80's:
CIDA spent a ton of money building a road in Zambia. Nice road. However, 'tied aid' being all the rage the equipment had to be sourced in Canada...of course Zambians drive on the 'wrong' side of the road, they were familiar with Bedfords, Mercedes Benz's, Renault's, and other European vehicles.

The Fords and Chevy's ended up on the side of the road, the cost to build a parts and repair infrastructure for several dozen vehicles far outweighed the benefit. The road got built, but not without huge logistical issues (i.e. additional funds the Canadians sure as shooting didn't come up with), and with very little, if any, lasting legacy besides the road itself. The equipment to build the road didn't last long either (same issues) so there was zero additional spinoff (no additional roads, no ability to repair the one which was built etc.), no legacy, to spending all that money, besides the one single lonely road and a lot of Detroit rust.

Damned African dictators. Why can't they just get their act together? <sarcasm>

This is the issue I was commenting on....

In 2007 we were in Botswana and saw a 'show home' built by CIDA (Canada International Development Agency) - it was being sold as a sustainable house. Prominently displayed were DOW rigid styrofoam panels, dual pane windows, and other bric-a-brac all "Made in Canada" (the air conditioner was made in China, I assume). The coolest unairconditioned houses (as in 'not hot' houses) I've been in were mud walled with thatch roofing, really sustainable, really cheap, just not 'modern' enough.

What I've been working on is improving thermal comfort without A/C and reducing energy consumption where A/C is already being used.

[B_B]

...What I've been working on is improving thermal comfort without A/C and reducing energy consumption where A/C is already being used.

Ah. Most of the work done regarding cheap, effective, energy issues was completed in the '70's. It still amazes me how little of the stuff done then is treated as relevant now.

FWIW, though, the point of that little anecdote, from 2007, was NOT about the thermal efficiency of traditional v. modern building methods. It's much more basic than that.

[peterAustralia]

To Ian

Yes there are good examples of aid, but there have been many bad examples

I guess over the last 40 years, aid agencies are getting better at it

some good examples of aid that I know of

solar bottle - google this, a very low cost (1 dollar) indoor lighting system (plastic bottle filled with salt water, goes in roof)
efficient stoves with chimneys, use much less fuel and the smoke which causes respitatory diseases is removed from the room - lowcost and efficient
fred hollow foundation - can restore sight for $25. After this operation people can then be construcive members of society instead of a drain
vaccinnations - efficient and cost effective - great health outcomes for relatively low cost
road building - allows farmers to get their crops to market, allows building materials to be brought into remote regions
the green revolution - much higher yielding crops (like three times) using hybrid yields. Downside is that they need fertilizer and some pesticide, however these programs have given hundreds of millions of people more food
GM crops - in my opinion I think they are good. They allow for greater yields with less pesticide. Of course there may be exceptions and they may not be suitable for all regions, however in my opinion they do a lot of good, others are allowed to have a different opinion
Solar kilns in Indonesia, allow for fish to be dried without having to use firewood



some bad examples
when zanzibar was made independant they build the worlds largest outdoors swimming pool, in a swamp, it promptly sank into the swamp
Bad roads in Ghana, farmers introduce new crops which yield a lot more, trouble is the roads are so bad they cant get them to market, so they go back to the old, low yield crops
When Mozambique became independant, there were less than a dozen local people with college degrees in the country - that combined with a civil war (now over) resulted in this country being about worst in the world for health outcomes. (not aid agencies fault, but I feel that Portugal had a moral responsibility to provide a good tranistion)
Ghana investing in manufacturing, whereas their comparitive advantage was in agriculture
The US wanted to build a road in afghanistan. They chose a US company despite other tenders being a third of the price. Road is now starting to crumble away as it was not built well and did not have wide shoulders


Ian may have some examples of good aid

Now that communism is proven not to work, countries are slowly working out which policies work best for them (mainly it seems through trial and error)
There is still heaps of corruption in many countries.
Boomerang aid is still a huge downside, (inefficient) The US, Germany and Japan are worst at this

When I worked for a company that made coated steel products. We sent some steel panels for testing, put a value of 100 dollars on them (probably worth 10 dollars). We had to pay a customs duty equal to the cost of the item (very inneficient - off topic, nothing to do with aid agencies)


One of the main issues it seems to me, is that aid program are often run to benefit companies from which country the aid comes from. This happens all too often, I would like to hope that this is becoming less common.

Can Ian give examples of how he saved hundreds of millions of dollars? background information

aid can be done well, aid can be done badly... all too often it seems to be done badly. Maybe bad new travels faster than good news?

[B_B]

...fred hollow foundation - can restore sight for $25. After this operation people can then be construcive members of society instead of a drain

...
When Mozambique became independant, there were less than a dozen local people with college degrees in the country - that combined with a civil war (now over) resulted in this country being about worst in the world for health outcomes. (not aid agencies fault, but I feel that Portugal had a moral responsibility to provide a good tranistion)

....
One of the main issues it seems to me, is that aid program are often run to benefit companies from which country the aid comes from. This happens all too often, I would like to hope that this is becoming less common.

...

I don't know the Fred Hollow foundation (they probably do really good work), but worked for some time for an organization which did eye-centric health care in the developing world. There are many 'sight restoring' procedures which cost a fraction of what you quote.

Zambia, in the early 2000's had two opthalmologists - 30 million people. One was, IIRC, the Minister of Health (i.e. not doing a lot of surgery). How Europeans left Africa is beyond shameful.

With regard to 'tied aid' - it's what we do. We've done it for decades and we won't change soon because we keep getting told by a certain segment of the population that we give too much to those useless and ungrateful louts...so if we're going to do it we ought to get something out of it. So we do it, it's wrong, doesn't work, and we get to blame the recipient of our largesse. A fine symbiotic relationship we've developed.

[The Bigfella]

Yes, I could give examples - but I won't.... there's more than one inmate of this forum tried to nobble my business already.... besides, client confidentiality comes into it.

One job I will discuss, was a foreign aid project in a third world country... aid funded by the EU. They didn't realise when awarding us the job that we were an Australian partnership... and when they did realise it, they refused to pay us in Oz... we had to get the British partnership to bill them on our behalf. It got better than that... an expat German consultant, who had his nose out of joint for missing the work (developing a method for getting banks to loan to indigenous business)... got on to the review board and played merry hell and had the report buried. Never implemented. Prick. It would have worked... had been shown to work in a different field.

Peter... yes, some good ideas there.... but there's not one of them there that I've seen in a year "on the ground" in Asia. Not one.... and I've spent more time in the villages than the bars.

The local dependence on cheap oil, btw, is one thing thats going to bite Asia on the bum. I've seen very few fishing setups that aren't totally dependant on it.

[The Bigfella]

Oh, I meant to add... I had dinner in Sydney earlier this year with two fabulous inmates from this forum. Medical specialists who have operated in Africa on an aid project. That would be called "boomerang aid" by some. Sure... its great to train locals to do it... but do you deny the assistance of trained experts just so you don't boomerang the aid? Of course not.

Peter... on the issue of your UNHCR contributions... I reckon there's far better ways of delivering aid to where its needed without that bunch of nongs sucking their take out of your money.

[peterAustralia]

Fred Hollows was an opthalmologist, spent a huge amount of time restoring sight to people in Africa, Nepal and also indigenous australians.
They have also been training a lof of local eye surgeons. The most famous eye operation they are famous for is removing a cataract and replacing that with a plastic lens

25 dollars seems to me a reasonable cost for fixing someone's sight, replacing a cataract with a plastic lens. It may be that this cost includes overheads
Fred Hollows is now dead. We was Australian of the year a few years back. As a generalisation here in Australia his organisation is very highly regarded, whether that is deserved or not I cannot say. I have to admit, I have heard very few if any bad things about the organisation. They have adds on TV, used to be $5 for Fred, now the
add says $25 can restore sight. (still seems a reasonable price)

Zambia, one eye surgeon doing operations for 30 million people, gee that is not a lot

I have heard about an aid agency here in Australia, they take hospital equipment that is past its use bye date and is destined to be thrown out at the tip. The collect it, put it in a container and send it to .... Zambia. Cant recall the name of the organisation at the moment.. guess could find out. That to me seems to be a very very cost effective use of aid money.

Yes aid does a lot of good, my point is that it is sometimes done badly, if done badly it can create a culure of dependance. I gave the example of India, a very very poor country, but generally aid agencies dont spend a lot of time there, they tend to let the Indians look after themselves via market forces. Not saying that there is not a huge amount of desperate poverty and absolute misery in India, there is.

Going back to Zambia, the story that I was relating was on TV. Expectant mother giving birth would do so on a wire frames bed (no mattress). I could not believe how utterly poor and woeful things were there

I do know that China is doing a lot of work in Africa, building a lot of infrastructure. In my opinion this is a good thing in that it appears to be better value for money. You have to pay a Chinese builder or engineer a lot lot less than a western engineer or builder. If an african country needs a hospital, it seems the Chinese can build one for a lot lot less than sending over highly paid western engineers to do the same thing.

Here is australia, we have an organisation called 'australian volunteers abroad'. Apparently they get paid the same as the nationals (not a lot), I would like to do something like that, trouble is that I do not have the qualifications to be accepted.

[peterAustralia]

Here is the link

It looks oustanding, excellent value for money. Using medical equipment that was bound for the tip, and sending it to poor countries that have almost nothing
Only cost would be that of transport

http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2...04/2676667.htm

[LeeG]

Peter, is the US unique in providing this boomerang aid or is it an artifact of wealthy countries wrt poorer countries
?

The book Enough reminds me of one I read 35 yrs ago by an African writer, Amir D.Simak. I forget the name of the book, The Center and Periphery(?).

Btw, Sophie Ian loves the attention, let him bask in his own light.

[MiddleAgesMan]

Remember the Brontes.

[peterAustralia]

To Lee G

My understanding of boomerang aid is not all that great. To the best of my knowledge the three worst offenders are the US, Germany and Japan. That is about the sum of my knowledge. I guess some search engine work would provide more info.

However there are some excellent plusses that deserve mention.

Some good things done, george w bush, tony blair and others did some excellent work in righting off the debt some of the poorest countries in Africa had to wealthy nations and financial institutions. Not my favourite people, but credit where credit is due. Also aid as a percentage of GDP from developing countries is increasing (this is good). This had a massive benefit to the poorest countries. Cost to US was minimal. It was described as one icecream cone for each US citizen for 3 years, or approx 4 dollars per US citizen.

Also good has been tens of billions of drugs to fight HIV in Africa and elsewhere, excellent programs that save millions of lives, again credit to GWB and others (dont like him, but he did some good things). The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has done excellent things.

There is also some good news coming out of Malawi. They defied the world bank and said that they were going to subsidise fertilser and high yield crop seeds. The world bank threatened to withhold loans. Turns out that these programs by Malawi were a huge success and food production soared. Even to the point where they were exporting 120 million dollars worth of food to Zimbabwe. After the success the world bank changed their mind and admitted that Malawi was correct and they were wrong.


There has been a proposal that one quarter of US food aid could be used instead to give money to the people that were starving. Examples given (this time in Uganda) was that giving money would buy three times as much grain, as the same amount of money using US grain. This was opposed by US farmers. Incredibly it was opposed by many aid agencies including world vision. Proposal was rejected in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Still reading the book, so dont know current state of affairs. If this proposal was given the OK, it would assist in saving billions of dollars by using aid more efficiently.


Getting back to boomerang aid, not my area of expertise. I do know that Afghanistan is a huge stuff up, not a lot of aid, plus the aid that is given is often tied. Furthermore the corruption by warlords and the afghan government means that hardly any money gets to reach the everyday people. Despite all the aid is Afghanistan life expenctancy has gone down from 43.5 years in 2001 to 41.5 in 2011. My opinion is that Afhanistan is a total stuff-up.

Now Afganistan may be an exception. Much aid does a massive amount of good. HIV drugs have saved millions of lives, vaccinations the same. The Green revolution has brought hundreds of millions (maybe billions) out of poverty in asia and the americas. There is a lot of good programs out there. Again we probably hear more about the bad things as opposed to the good things. Of course communism was exceptionally inefficient, getting rid of that has improved outcomes for a lot of people. Corruption can destroy a country though (example Kenya today, Indonesia in the past, Zimbabwe today and in the past).

When countries were newly independant they often did not have the skills to create successful economies. Some tried socialism with good intent, but bad outcomes. Some focussed on Industry and not on agriculture. Many regressed to civil war. However slowly but surely they seem to be getting their act together, mainly it seems through trial and error though.

Into the future, the biggest downsides are corruption, overpopulation, loss of ariable land and topsoil erosion, also climate change (less reliable rains etc)

A personal anecdote, I work in Chemisty. The story I heard was the UN started a program in Pakistan to measure pesticide in food products. The trouble was that they put the lab ontop of the factory that made the pesticide. Anyone that knows anything about analysis knows that this is a complete disaster. So the entire program failed, bye bye a million dollars or so. However the local officials were all keen for the project, an they got all their kickbacks.

Another little aside, the late Benazir Bhutto, former primer minister of Pakistan was shown in the media as a hard done bye, articulate reforming force. Truth is that she was a disaster. She pardoned hundreds of corrupt politicians that had been convicted of corruption. When she was in powere as PM, not one law got passed. Thus my opinion of her is not good. Sorry to see her killed, but she was a disaster for Pakistan.



end of rant ...back to the real world now

[LeeG]

I wonder how Wolfowitz was as World Bank President. Peter, thx for the response.

[B_B]

.... They have adds on TV, used to be $5 for Fred, now the
add says $25 can restore sight. (still seems a reasonable price)...


I have heard about an aid agency here in Australia, they take hospital equipment that is past its use bye date and is destined to be thrown out at the tip. The collect it, put it in a container and send it to .... Zambia. Cant recall the name of the organisation at the moment.. guess could find out. That to me seems to be a very very cost effective use of aid money....

$5 per eye for cataract surgery was about right about 10 yrs ago. Maybe they cost more now but I suspect the $25 has more to do with donor habits, cost benefit analysis, overhead, etc. Yes, it's still a very reasonable cost.

With regard to sending used equipment overseas - it's a double edged sword. "They" need equipment, but having a hospital, for example, with a dozen different types of hospital bed from a dozen different manufacturers, all of which are well past their useful life spans, means the hospital spends a lot of management time on logistics and repair and using broken equipment. Imagine, now, that same issue multiplied throughout their operation - every piece of equipment comes with "just one or two" "small" deficiencies, every piece comes from a different manufacturer, many come from places where there are language barriers, many are slightly different and the doctor needs to be trained on each one .... and so much of the stuff goes in the tip in Zambia (or wherever) instead of Canada (or wherever).

....and the recipients all say "thank you very much" because they hope building relationships will transform into them being heard as opposed to told.

[peterAustralia]

Hi B_B

I do take your point about getting medical equipment from multiple sources, leads to lots of breakdowns, and very hard to fix. I guess I would say is that prior to this equipment arriving they had nothing. The TV I watched last week showed expectant mother about to give birth on a wire frame bed, in leiu of a mattress. The humidicribs on the video above were filled with 2 babies each, and seemed to be in constant use. Plus there were some disposables being sent (syringes etc). I am sure there is some inefficiency in the process, all I can say is that my gut feeling is that the equipment will be relatively well utilised. Just possibly costs for maintenace people to fix broken equipment would be a lot less,,, this is speculation on my part though.

Not to be a total hypocrite, this morning i donated $200 to the hollows foundation, and $150 to the organistation sending used medical equipment overseas. I am now $350 the poorer. I could well afford to do more, but at least it is something. The organistions are these, (there is a biography of fred hollows there, a better person than me by a long margin)

www.hollows.org.au/
www.operationlift.org.au/

As to the book, confessions of an economic hitman by John Perkins, I have read the book, was a good read. I would however put that in context, these events happened mostly in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s. I would like to think things are a little better now.(?) For those that have not read the book, the premise goes a bit like this. Officials from the world bank and also the US state department would travel to newly independent poor nations and encourage them to take out large loans for flashy new projects, new airports, power stations, steel works etc. These poor countries would have trouble paying back the debt, and thus they would be forced to be on good terms with the US and its western allies. By doing this they then locked in those nations to supporting the US in the battle against the russians in the cold war.

Pretty sure this thread is coming to an end very soon... think it has been a good thread.. back to the real world now...

[peterAustralia]

As to Paul Wolfowitz,

I am not a fan of the person, dont generally like him (invasion of iraq). The little that I have heard is that he seems to be doing a pretty good job at the world bank. They seem to be concentrating on agriculture in the third world, once that is going well, the nations can then progress into other areas. Credit where credit is due.

[B_B]

Please, under no circumstances, take my cynicism as an indictment or a request that you do not donate. I am pleased you gave. Thanks.

I am sure there is some inefficiency in the process, all I can say is that my gut feeling is that the equipment will be relatively well utilised. Just possibly costs for maintenace people to fix broken equipment would be a lot less,,, this is speculation on my part though.

Not to be full of myself on the issue but I worked shipping stuff overseas, I know what our partners said. I also grew up in Africa, the son of missionaries who worked in development - at the end of our stay there my father was the head of a vocational school for blind people in Botswana.

What I say, with regard to much donated equipment, isn't gut feeling it's what I experienced, for example, going through two 40' containers of donated braille books the majority of which were old issues of "Good Housekeeping" and the like. "Sex in Your 60's" and "The Wit and Wisdom of Jimmy Carter" sure made everyone around us giggle pretty good too. How that constituted a constructive and helpful set of books for a vocational school I'll never know. The cost of shipping those two containers would have actually helped stock a real library. Most of the books found use as 'firewood'.

I was program coordinator for the largest used eyeglass collection system in Canada for a while. I know what the recipients said when they talked to me "off the record". I know how most hospitals I contacted with regard to donated used/old equipment responded. It's not just a slight maintenance cost, it's a huge investment in management time for a lot of them (of course it depends on the equipment).

That's not to say that in certain circumstances there is no place for used equipment, rather, to emphasize the point of the OP. That often we do things because it makes us feel good or benefits us personally, not because it actually helps the other person.

[The Bigfella]

Nice attitude Peter... and I like your perspective on things. Absolutely no reason for the thread to come to an end. I don't mind her bile being on display. It defines her pretty well.

Well done on the donations. Two worth causes.

I had need for an eye surgeon a couple of months back in Sumatra and tracked one down at a great hospital in Medan. It was going to cost between US$680 and $1,400+ on costs for two cataract ops (both eyes)... but after my friend was examined, the surgeon said he was stuffed... blind too long (20 years) and too many complications... glaucoma, etc. We ended up building a pig farm for the family - which now has 6 pigs that will help the family for the same money (donated by an inmate from advrider.com).

... on a related issue, spiked has a book review in its current issue... about the silliness associated with the "eat local" food lobby. Only 4% of the carbon dioxide output (etc) is related to distribution from producer to consumer. It is far better for, say UK consumers to eat NZ lamb, than it is to produce it less efficiently in the UK

[2MeterTroll]

Ian How the hell do you improve on a thousand year old building method? the west insisted on cinder block houses for years and folks are just now getting the reality that earthen building is cooler than block. total idiocy in the sciences i see.

This is the issue I was commenting on....



What I've been working on is improving thermal comfort without A/C and reducing energy consumption where A/C is already being used.

[The Bigfella]

Hey.... I've always been a fan of earthen buildings.

How do you improve? Let's take existing building stock... window films, roof ventilation, thermal flushing (pumping in cold air at night), planting shade trees.... and a whole heap more.

[purri]

^ the usual deflection...

[The Bigfella]

^ the usual deflection...

You'll disappear sometime soon if that head of yours goes any further in.

As usual, I see you've got several posts all about me. You got a secret crush on me too?

[purri]

meh...

[purri]

Purri, you'd better take his advice on this because we all know he's speaking from experience

Why do you have to do this rubbish all the time. It's totally useless. Take it elsewhere!

Yaama Sophie,

No offence taken of MW's reply, his cultural determinism is writ somewhat large. FWIW the late Fred Hollows and his surviving family have lived next door since 1975 and I have somewhat a more than occasional knowledge of what these matters under "discussion" are about. Many do not and I have posted some info on the matter some years ago.

Yiyaalu

[The Bigfella]

Yaama Sophie,

No offence taken of MW's reply, his cultural determinism is writ somewhat large. FWIW the late Fred Hollows and his surviving family have lived next door since 1975 and I have somewhat a more than occasional knowledge of what these matters under "discussion" are about. Many do not and I have posted some info on the matter some years ago.

Yiyaalu

It ain't cultural determinism mate... its a valid reponse to a repeated insult by you.

Isn't it?