What if the ‘aid’ is not aiding?
“Don’t throw away your food, think of all the poor kids in Africa that could use it”
“Donate your money to the poor kids in Ethiopia instead”
Unknowingly, these phrases that have now become so normalized, have painted a certain image in the eyes of many, that equates Africa to some sort of poverty-stricken land. Yes, poverty has caused various struggles for many nations in Africa, but it is concerning that this is the only narrative by which many Western nations depict Ethiopia and numerous other countries. This has resulted in many Westerners feeling as though they must be the ‘saviors’ that help save Africa from all of its troubles.
On a larger scale, we can see this with the endless amounts of NGOs and Foreign Aid organizations that have been started in order to address issues of poverty in Ethiopia. They not only continue to propagate the poverty-stricken image of Africa, but continue to fulfill their agenda of ‘aid’ without careful consideration of the negative effects of their contribution. While the well-intended foreign aid allows for immediate relief and satisfaction to the aid-receivers, which makes it seem like this should be uncontroversial, what does it actually mean for Ethiopia’s development long-term?
Many have named foreign aid to developing nations a ‘band-aid solution.’ This is because, despite helping cover up the immediate struggles, this does not address the root cause of the poverty struggles which has in fact led to impacting the poor in Ethiopia even more negatively. Ethiopia has been facing many persistent problems including recurrent droughts, land degradation, and the World Bank reporting that over 26 million Ethiopians live in poverty. While many can agree in the responsibility of more developed nations to help those in need, the way in which they go about providing this foreign aid has raised many debates.
In “Does International Food Aid Harm the Poor?”, Lenson and McMillan’s article for the National Bureau of Economic Research, they discuss how policies of foreign aid, seemingly harmless, have actually been harming rural households. They explain that the economic imbalance between buyers and sellers in the Ethiopian economy shows the cycle of dependency created in Ethiopia due to foreign aid significantly harming local sellers and rural farmers. This is because a lot of the food aid that is received by Ethiopia eventually ends up being sold in local markets which makes it impossible for local sellers to compete and lower their prices to a point that will make their products appealing.
While Lenson and McMillan’s article addresses the foreign aid factors that are forcing rural farmers and local households to be unsuccessful, other researchers focus, instead, on the plethora of other obstacles such as weather, lack of irrigation, fertilizer, that have made Ethiopia so dependent on foreign countries. Therefore, it is clear that there are numerous better alternatives as to where foreign aid can be allocated as opposed to constantly supplying Ethiopia with the ‘easy way out’, often causing what the article refers to as “dependency syndrome.”
However, in articles such as Building on success in development aid, we can see critics of my argument who would point out how this recent controversy scrutinizing foreign aid comes about “even though evaluations of development aid at project and sector levels have consistently pointed towards positive impacts.” This article highlights the victories that have certainly been achieved in these nations due to foreign aid. Despite slowing the potential and growth of Ethiopia’s economy, it is undeniable that a lot more lives of those living in immediate poverty would have been lost without the relief coming into Ethiopia. This further emphasizes why I am in now way arguing that aid to Ethiopia should be stopped. Rather, to allow for long-term economic growth, beyond the temporary victories, the aid should be distributed in ways that promote and allow Ethiopia to capitalize off of it’s own wealth and ditch the cycle of dependency.
For starters, Western nations need to move away from the existing narrative of Ethiopia and believe in it’s potential. With a youth population of over 30 million, the high unemployment rate and low literacy rate is a huge growth force waiting to be addressed. Investments into education, infrastructure, and agricultural resources for example, would help boost long-term growth in ways that the immediate relief currently being provided can’t. In Making Africa Great Again, Kwemo addresses the importance of “long-term investment in the private sector” to help developing nations prosper. This is because reallocating aid money to educating individuals, infrastructure, manufacturing, and agriculture, creates the employment to utilize the large unemployed population. This creates a solution and allows for self-sustenance in ways that emergency aid does not allow.
Considering that the only way in which Ethiopia’s youthful population, potentially a tremendous asset, can help Ethiopia progress is through training, education, and investment in infrastructure, it is concerning that BBC reports that much of Ethiopia’s investment into these sectors “being funded from the government’s own budget, rather than aid.” With many articles reporting that Ethiopia is one of the largest beneficiaries of aid in the world, this raises the question as to why the aid is not better allocated to utilizing, training, and hiring the youth. In fact, in an effort to simultaneously tackle issues of unproductivity as well as food insecurity, the Ethiopian government actually created a Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) in 2005. The program was primarily a ‘food-for-work’ program where individuals who qualified as food insecure were provided with a job in the public sector which would enable them access to food in the agricultural off-season. This allows for a shift from the emergency foreign relief that’s creating the dependency concerns, and instead creates opportunity for agricultural workers, for example, to have access to a secure incomes. While there may be downsides to be considered with this program as well, it has increased the potential of individuals being able to earn long-term income.
Lastly, some may argue that the aid received to invest in these factors instead would still promote dependency, as Ethiopia would continue to receive hefty donations from abroad. However, my argument is that investing in sectors that hire, educate, and encourage Ethiopians to contribute to their own economy, as opposed to waiting for food, money, or clothes to be delivered to them, allows Ethiopia to move farther and farther away from dependency. Additionally, Akwagyiram’s article for BBC discusses an interesting point of a “force to be reckoned with” that Ethiopia could also tap into; the Diaspora. He points out that many Africans that live abroad “send more money home to their families than is sent by traditional Western aid donors.” Akwagyiram believes that a lot of these diaspora would have the empathy, interest, and desire to invest in their respective nations as well, which could be made possible by more active local NGOs. This raises conversation for how some of the money that I suggest go towards increasing employment could even come from other sources of aid like this one.
It’s clear that continuing the current form of relief aid, or completely stopping foreign aid altogether, both result in unideal outcomes in the long run. But to reallocate this aid to allow Ethiopia’s local population, businesses, youth, and in turn the economy to prosper, is the best way to go about stopping the cycle of dependency plaguing many developing nations.
