Better aid

To effectively tackle the root causes of poverty, governments must give more, and better quality aid to the poorest countries.  At present, too much aid fails to reduce poverty because it never leaves the donor country, damaging strings are attached to it, and governments don’t properly coordinate the aid they give. 

Rich countries committed themselves to use aid exclusively for poverty reduction at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. But so far they’ve failed to deliver. Developing countries are unable to invest aid money in effective long term solutions because rich countries give them aid on an erratic, short term basis. Additionally a large proportion of aid is still tied to the use of services in rich countries, or simply isn’t directed to the countries most in need.

These problems are compounded by strings attached to aid money – often imposed by international institutions such as the World Bank & IMF. These ‘conditions’ are often used to push risky and unproven policies – such as water and energy privatization – which hit the poorest hardest. Where poor countries fail to comply with these conditions, rich countries withhold aid money.

‘Technical assistance’ is an example of low-quality aid, where money is often spent on costly international consultants, research and training. Priorities are usually set by donor governments rather than recipient countries, and the use of outside ‘experts’ often fails to build local skills.

In Tanzania, Japanese funded advisors installed expensive diesel irrigation pumps instead of the conventional irrigation used in Tanzania. As the result of the high price of diesel, the cost of irrigation in now three times that of other areas. Only one in three pumps is now in use because no one can afford the diesel and no one is available to repair them.

photo : ©Mark Phillips/ActionAid UK