Dead Aid

In an article relating to the U.S. plan to assist the people of Afghanistan, it says

“Afghanistan's president Tuesday praised U.S. plans to provide more civilian
help to his country, and expressed hope that the country becomes less dependent
on international partners in coming years.”

I would like to highlight the president’s use of the words ‘less dependent’, because as I have mentioned before, the result of dependency is a key argument against international aid programs. However, if distributed in the right way, aid can be used effectively, encouraging the development of a self-sufficient country instead of a country dependent upon aid and unable to dig themselves out of a hole that they did not create.

For example, there are hundreds of microfinance institutions, which help people all over the world help themselves. Instead of just handing the poor world objects needed to survive, microfinance institutions or ‘the poor man’s bank’ hand them the tools to build their own future. They do this by giving out loans and grants of small sums of money to impoverished people to enable them to start a business and create lives for themselves. Microfinance helps to create a sustainable future, instead of one shredded by dependency.

In fact most aid organizations are mending their methods of aid, aiming on giving self-sufficiency, instead of hand outs. For example, USAID, an independent federal government aid distribution agency, provide women in Afghanistan with the tools to earn a living through 86 bakeries, employing a growing total of 896 poor women. Additionally USAID has worked on sustainability projects in Afghanistan such as constructing 2,700 kilometers of roads so that 60% of Afghanis now live approximately 50 kilometers of the newly constructed ring road. USAID are also working on increasing the amount of Afghanis that have electricity, as currently it stands at a mere 15%.

In this very recent CNN video, Dambisa Moyo, the author of ‘Dead Aid’, a book that calls for a change in aid strategy, says we are living in an “aid dependent world.” She argues that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the aid creates jobs for Africans.

However, we can see from the work done by USAID and microfinance institutions, that if aid is used in the right way, it can definitely create jobs. Dambisa Moyo says that the right way to go about getting rid of aid is introducing an increasingly free market. She says she would like aid to decrease in hopes of creating more sustainable countries that don’t have to depend on aid. If only it were that easy.

Neglect in Tanzania

An ammunition dump of the outskirts of the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam exploded. The death toll stands currently at 20, however more than 1,000 people were injured in the explosion, 300 of which are currently in critical care at the local hospital. In an article by the BBC entitled ‘Tanzania blast victims demand aid,’ it explains how the survivors of the crisis, which happened last week, are still waiting for emergency relief.

The unsettling thing about this story is that it is Tanzania’s own government that pledged to help compensate all those affected by the blast, and it is the government that is failing to fulfill their pledge. Many local residents of Dar es Salaam are yet to be provided with adequate food and shelter. They are inhumanely being forced to live in the dangerous ruins of their crumbling homes whilst they wait for the government to pull themselves together.

A local man, whose home was largely destroyed in the explosion, and who is still looking for his missing child, has this to say:

“I went to register [for aid] so officers could come here to assess the damage,
but to date I have neither seen the camp leader nor the area governmental
person. I spent the whole day yesterday at home. I have not seen anyone."

More than half of the dead were children, many of whom drowned in a river in the panic following the blast. It is estimated that hundreds of people, mainly children, are yet to be reunited with their families. The only aid team on the scene helping to distribute aid, and provide services, is the Red Cross.

The Role of the Media

Years after natural disasters, the need for aid still lingers. Hurricane Katrina victims and hurricane Ike victims are still in need of care and shelter. Aid quickly becomes a small priority when the terrible natural disaster loses its drama and floats its way out of the media. This is a problem.

This recent article from the BBC, reports that hundreds of thousands of people in Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta (east of India) still need assistance- a year after the deadly cyclone. Cyclone Nargis killed about 140,000 people in 2008 and more than 2 million people were left homeless. The cyclone that flew across the fields of Burma was a disaster comparable to the Asian tsunami.

“Yet the amounts of aid being requested are just a fraction of what is being
spent on countries like Indonesia after the tsunami- and not much is forthcoming
yet.”

The UN have made an appeal of $ 700 million for reconstruction in February, however so far they have received less than $100 million.

The article pin points the problem in lack of public awareness of the crisis. There are actually around 60 aid agencies at work in Burma, even a year after the disaster, and yet we do not hear about it. This problem is rooted in the fact that most foreign journalists have been banned from reporting in Burma. Another problem is that the public are skeptical of where there money is going, because of Burma’s military government who are increasingly suspicious of foreign involvement in their country. Therefore, the public are worried that their money will be going into the wrong hands. This is despite the fact that the director of STC (save the children) has assured that he is absolutely confident that aid will not be sent into the hands of the military government.

Many cyclone victims in Burma are still living in poorly constructed shelters that are suffering from salt contamination. Additionally, the reconstruction project in Burma has barely begun.

Another situation that has been ignored and only thrust into the spotlight due to a person in government is the humanitarian situation in Haiti. One of the western hemisphere’s poorest nations is in dire need of aid after a year of hurricanes and food riots. Despite its apparently relatively successful economy, there is a hugely uneven distribution of wealth in Haiti and 70 percent on the population are unemployed.

Hilary Clinton wants to pledge $57 million towards Haiti, to help it build roads, create jobs, help with food shortages, and provide relief for recent hurricanes.

An additional country that has been in the news recently due to its need for aid is Somalia. Up to 3 million people in Somalia (half the population) are in need of food aid.

“They don’t have access to basic services, they don’t have access to clean
water. They are in need of emergency assistance that the government cannot
provide.”

Recent lack of aid has been mainly due to the fact that aid workers have been killed, as some Muslim regions of the country are not willing to work with aid agencies.

Model UN reflection

Having never done anything like the model UN simulation before, I thought it was particularly interesting. Especially as prior to it, I knew absolutely nothing about the country of Kuwait. I also feel that my knowledge about the relations of the Middle East has increased substantially. I mostly enjoyed the parts of the simulation where we had a major crisis to solve because it was fun to be able to exercise so much pretend power and also to have your voice heard on potentially real life situations. It was also a good way to hear about everyone else’s area of interest in Kuwait (for example, the economy, defense or education). It was fun to be able to experience what goes into the decision making process, and how many things come into play when making decisions that effect an entire nation of people, or even multiple countries.

I think I was sufficiently prepared; I knew lots of details about my ministry and knew basic facts and foreign policy about Kuwait. However, I could have improved my knowledge by reading everyone else’s blog entries about Kuwait as to have a slightly more rounded perception of the country.

I was most proud of how our group handled our crises very realistically on the first day of the simulation. We were not too generous to the people or too lenient on the workers. We were firm, but not uncooperative. I think we were very good at acting as Kuwait might really have acted, taking the views of our population into consideration with the reorganization of the government and with the workers crisis, and not just giving into our power hungry, foreign policy minded inner desires to dominate the Middle East.

Also, I thought our group was very good at not allowing just one person to dominate all decision making. Almost everyone spoke out on the first day and most people got to talk about their particular ministry and were useful in decision making not only if it applied to their ministry, but everything in general. Many people voiced opinions and showed knowledge in areas that they didn’t focus on.

Our group also made sure to look at news releases not concerning our own country, because you never know when something could come along that could mean great profit for our nation. For example, the Iranian post about oil found off the coast of their country which allowed us to join forces with Iraq and the USA was a very handy one. It would not have been good if we had ignored that piece of information especially as Kuwait’s rich economy almost runs singlehandedly on oil supply. Also we gave out aid on a few occasions, which was my area of expertise, when news releases came out about the spread of disease or of famine in Iraq. This helped to keep ourselves alive in the simulation and to ensure our survival in the core part of the events.

I think the simulation could have gone much better if the organizers had more people on staff because then news could have been approved and posted faster and therefore there would be more things we might be able to react/respond to. On the second day we weren’t given any crises therefore we were forced to try to play off of other country’s situations in order to get ourselves back into the center of the simulation. Towards the end, in a desperate plea for recognition, we planned a celebratory boat party where we planned to assassinate the prime minister of China. Overall the people in charge could definitely have been more organized, or had some potential crises ready to give out in case of a countries lack of things to deal with, particularly countries like Kuwait who are not an especially large player in the international system.

Aiding Ourselves?

When I type ‘aid’ into the BBC news search, I find it interesting that it comes up with a number of stories about aiding companies or aiding sports teams. We are spending hundred of millions in order to keep up our precious capitalism (do not worry, I am not a socialist). We are giving aid to ourselves.

Imagine if we got rid of just one multimillion dollar corporation, and used the money to aid the rest of the world. Yes, thousands of people would lose their jobs, but we may be saving the lives of a thousand others. Imagine just getting rid of one huge corporation, one manufacturer who make things unbreakable in order for us to break them and have to buy new things (or a company that is already exploiting its employees), can change a lot.

This article from the BBC, talks about money that is being funded so that lil’ ol’ Darlington Football Club can be reestablished, which is 5 million pounds in debt. The article talks about how when each person buys a ticket, the money will go towards the club and its establishment. We in the west so eagerly feed our local communities because then they feed us with entertainment. We feed ourselves when we could feed the impoverished world.

That article came out this month, within the very same week that this article came out, addressing starvation issues in the prisons of Zimbabwe.

“Dozens of inmates in Zimbabwe die every day of starvation and disease.”

We could possibly help them in their plea for humanitarian aid needed for ‘food and clothing’, however we would all appear (including myself) to be too busy aiding ourselves with entertainment and additional merchandise.

A documentary was made about the conditions of the prisons in Zimbabwe. In the documentary prisoners describe how the sick and the healthy sleep side-by-side in unhygienic and overcrowded cells. These conditions seem to arguably reflect the conditions that the people were held in at a school during the Cambodian genocide, in which hardly anyone who went in survived. Things like this are happening all over the world. We give money to aid football teams, to help attention deprived sports stars, when other people are life threateningly food deprived.

I know that it is hard to truly feel the effects of what we are doing; it is hard for everyone to feel for the rest of the world because it simply doesn’t affect us, doesn’t apply to us. The western world (again, including me) finds it hard to deplete even the smallest bit of self consumption. After all, we are a consuming nation. We aim to fill our wants, when less developed nations merely seek fulfillment of their needs.

On the CNN website, when I type in ‘aid’, I find a number of different things. But what I found that was most alarming was that a story entitled ‘what you eat can improve your health, mind and appearance’ was sitting right next to a story entitled ‘Quake survivors: what about our future?’. This is the part where we ignore the question and say well, what about my hair?!

Kuwait: Aid and KFAED

Due to Kuwait possessing roughly 10% of the world’s oil supply, even though it is very small, it has become one of the worlds’ richest countries. Therefore Kuwait’s has the potential to deliver lots of foreign aid, which is does, in large amounts. A significant part of Kuwait’s revenue gets invested in foreign aid every year, primarily to Arab states due to the well used Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED), which was established in 1961. The main concern of KFAED is to help fellow developing countries, and to promote friendly relations between them and Kuwait.

During the Iraq-Iran war, KFAED began aiming their efforts towards Iraq. During the 1980s Kuwait lent an estimate of $13 billion dollars to Iraq, which is almost as much as the USAID lent (United States Agency for International Development). By 2004, they had lent $16 billion dollars to Iraq, and yet KFAED announced that they were prepared to wave away “a significant portion” of the debt owed to it by Iraq. The creation of KFAED set a benchmark as the first developing country with an aid agency. This argues that the less developed, rich countries can play a role in the international community and that they are not helpless. They are more than happy to come to the aid of their neighboring countries, just as America, the world’s superpower in our current unipolar international system, aids the rest of the world.

Kuwait is playing its part in the international community. More recently, as of March 2009, KFAED is loaning the Sudanese government a total of $217 million dollars to help build a hydroelectric dam, one of Sudan’s largest development project ever. Also recently, KFEAD agreed to loan Yemen $14 million towards their social development program which aims to combat unemployment, poverty and increase the income of low-income families. On top of this KFAED managed a $2.5 million dollar grant to Yemen to rebuild homes that were destroyed in an earthquake.

A significant change came in 1974 when they began to expand foreign aid to developing countries worldwide. In totally they have given aid to 101 countries around the globe including 40 African countries and 34 Asian and European countries. In general, loans are primarily targeted at the development of water, agriculture, transport and energy. In 2005 KFAED sponsored the building of a hospital in Bahrain, a power station in Jordan, an irrigation project in Albania and many road projects in several African countries. One of the most interesting distributions of aid from Kuwait was in fact the giving of $500 million dollars of aid in the form of oil products and humanitarian assistance, to US hurricane victims in 2005. This is particularly surprising because the majority of their aid is focused upon the middle east and Africa, and the US do not have a very good reputation with Muslim countries, arguably being perceived as a big bully to Muslim countries in the Middle East. Sheikh Ahmed said this was due to an opportunity “to express faithfulness to our friends and allies who stood on our side in difficult times”. I assume this is in reference to America’s assistance in the liberation of Kuwait, or when US military aid was sent to Kuwait in 1987 to help protect Kuwait from Iranian attacks.

There is also the Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS), which also participated in aid to the United States after hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross reports that KRCS gave them a $25 million dollar donation in February 2006, after the devastating hurricane. At that time it was the single largest recorded donation ever received by the Red Cross from any group or any country. Dr. Hilal Al-Sayer, Vice President of the Kuwait Red Crescent Society, was apparently so moved by the hurricane destruction, he actually visited the Red Cross group in New Orleans. He was able to see, first hand, how the Kuwait aid was being spent. It was spent effectively on the manufacture of hundreds of new ERV’s (Emergency Response Vehicles), which enabled the Red Cross to deliver food and shelter and other humanitarian aid much more effectively to the needy population. Dr. Hilal Al-Sayer was passionately pleased with this use of their aid. The Chairman of the American Red Cross, Bonnie McElveen, is reported having said “How grateful we are in America to have the wonderful friendship of the magnificent people of Kuwait.” I never even knew this friendship existed, and I still find it quite strange, especially as Kuwait is so closely linked with Iraq, who is the primary recipient of their aid.

The Kuwait Red Crescent Society was founded in 1966 and it aims to achieve social and medical welfare for all needy people, without discrimination, and to provide help and rescue operations during crisis caused by natural or human disasters. One of their greatest achievements was the leading role they took in responding to the Tsunami of December 2004. Currently the KRCS are committed to supplying humanitarian aid to the displaced people of Darfur. In 2007 they delegated $1 million dollars for rehabilitating basic services in Darfur. Earlier, in 2002, Kuwait pledged $30 million dollars to help rebuild Afghanistan that had been plagued by 23 years of war and devastation. Kuwait has also been known to consistently send large portions of aid to Lebanon who is being afflicted by the Israeli war on their country. In particular, in 2006 KRCS sent a convoy of 440 tons of food supplies, tents and blankets to needy Lebanese families.

Kuwait gives out an impressive amount of aid, especially for a developing country, and especially due to the fact that it is a tax free state. In addition to this, the aid is aimed towards development, which helps less developed countries gradually become sustainable. However, one must consider whether or not this non-discriminatory, developmental based aid from Kuwait will be able to continue. After all, more than 90% of their wealthy economy is based on oil exports and oil is a worryingly nonrenewable energy source. Without their oil trade, there will be no budget surplus, therefore the deliverance of international aid will be much, much more difficult to achieve. Perhaps in the future they will be the ones in need of aid, and hopefully many will come to help them, just as they once helped to aid everyone else.

Exercising Power through Aid

It has been argued that US aid is given to reward political and military partners rather than to advance genuine economic and humanitarian causes abroad. Arguably, it has a two-fold purpose of furthering America’s foreign policy in expanding democracy and free markets, while conveniently it also improves the lives of those in the developing countries.

Additionally, USAID (United States agency for international development) only gave out 12.3% of its budget as humanitarian aid in 2004. However, impressively, 30.1% of it went to bilateral or developmental aid.

I don’t mean to be completely negative about the US commitment to aid because they are still the worlds’ greatest aid loaner. As it states in this BBC article, recently the US government gave out a very large sum of money ($900 million) to Gaza. Additionally, they are being extremely careful about making sure the aid does not go to their current ‘terrorist’ government (The Hamas). In fact, so careful, to the extent that some Congress members were hesitant about giving the large donation to Gaza just in case it ended up in the wrong hands. This proves that the US realizes the risk and how aid can be mistreated by corrupt governments.

Instead the aid will be shared between nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the United Nations and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. I believe the UN is a great place to invest aid in because with more funds, they have the very possible potential to be a really significant peacekeeping force, just like they could have been if they were aided with the genocide in Rwanda.

The article describes the need for aid in Gaza, stating:

Around 1,300 Palestinians, of whom 412 were children, were killed during the
Israeli offensive on Gaza; 21,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged.
Thirteen Israelis were killed during the three weeks of violence.

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Last year there appeared a very interesting article about how the US had offered Cuba $5 million in relief aid after their hurricane, but they refused to receive it. After this refusal, they persisted and asked Cuba to reconsider, however they did not. But the US did not give at that, they licensed agricultural exports to Cuba worth $250 million to be used as lumber for reconstruction. This shows that the US does genuinely have their eyes on the lookout for humanity outside of its own, even humanity governed by a socialist regime.

However, the article didn’t say why Cuba insisted upon refusing aid from America. One can only be suspicious of political conditions that may or may not have been attached to the large aid package. It is possible however that the Cuban government simply didn’t want help from a country whose political ideology is different from their own.

This is a way that powerful countries exercise their power: through giving aid, or through giving aid with attachments or conditions. Dependency theorists argue that the giving of aid only increases states instability because they can no longer function on their own two feet; they become dependent on aid, dependant on the powerful. These countries that are dependent on aid arguably have no choice but to abide by the rules of the powerful and agree to their ideological system, because otherwise they may not survive.

Aid, a device originated for good, can be used as a tool for domination.

Kuwait

Kuwait is a small, rich, Islamic country in the Middle East, situated between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. As of July 2008 it has a population of 2,596,799 where almost half of them are non-nationals. Kuwait attained independence from the United Kingdom in June 1961.

Kuwait has a stable economy and is home to 8% of the worlds’ oil reserve. Petroleum counts for 95% of its export revenues and 80% of governmental income. Since 1946 it has been the world’s second largest oil exporter. Kuwait has been doing very well over the past few years and celebrated its 10th consecutive budget surplus. Occasionally the government gives out the surplus budget as a grant to all Kuwaiti citizens who apply, in 2006 a grant of 700$ (200 Kuwaiti dinars) was paid to every citizen. In addition to this, in 2007 they issued a debt forgiveness scheme for all Kuwaiti people, totaling 1 billion American dollars. However, non Kuwait citizens do not have the luxury of these benefits, and that makes a large portion of the population.

On the other hand, Kuwait is not all good; they have had a history of low paid, mistreated workers, and have been accused of not battling against human trafficking. To support this, an article in 2008 from the Kuwait Times reports that the US have warned Kuwait about dropping their trafficking level from Tier 2 to Tier 3 (Tier 3 countries receive the lowest ranking in trying to prevent human trafficking). The US has argued that Kuwait shows insufficient efforts to criminally prosecute and punish abusive employees and those who traffic women for sexual exploits. The government has promised for several years to strengthen the penalty on exploitation of foreign workers but so far they have failed to work towards this goal. And since this was reported in a Kuwait newspaper I doubt very much that they have dramatized the situation, if anything they would have made the situation seem less important.

Many people from countries all around (including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal) voluntarily move to Kuwait as a transit country to find labor. However, upon arrival, they are subject to forced working conditions, and sometimes their passports are withheld, or they must work with no pay or are forced into commercial sexual exploitation. The latter comes about because some women must resort to prostitution after fleeing abusive employers. And arguably Kuwait truly don’t care about creating a better working environment as this year Kuwait put a ban on withholding passports, but has not done anything to enforce it.

Since 2003 the Emir of Kuwait has been Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed. The BBC report that they expect Sheikh Sabah to continue Kuwait’s pro western stance and pursue reforms. In May 2005 parliament gave women the right to vote and his government appointed the first female minister. Also, he has introduced laws that open the door to foreign investors. Sheikh Sabah hastily appointed his brother as the crown prince and his nephew as the prime minister. These jobs had traditionally been kept by one individual, but this was changed by him in 2003. Furthermore, members of the ruling family hold most of the key cabinet positions. In the past the ruling family would clash with the parliament, but these measures seem to make that less likely.

Kuwait has been a major source of economic development in other countries through the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED). In 1947 however they extended their funds to all non-Arab developing countries. Total loan disbursement comes up to around $15 billion. They are also responsible for $500 million worth of loans to Iraq to help the reconstruction efforts. In 2005 KFAED distributed $50 million for Hurricane Katrina relief and $50 million to Pakistani earthquake relief efforts. They are doing their part in the world.

Kenya and Gaza

As we ourselves are finding the economy in a recession, the rest of the world is still suffering. In this article, an urgent need for aid is expressed by the President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki. The country has been struck by a drought, which is one of those things that cannot be predicted, and therefore needs to have an emergency strategy. If aid given to Kenya in the past had been aimed to sustain rather than to relieve, maybe they wouldn't need to have to request aid in their current drastic situation.

'In coming months about 10 million people will be dependent upon aid. Since the
last drought in 2006, two rainy seasons have failed to deliver the water
necessary, and the lack of rain has exacerbated the situation dramatically.'

These 10 million people are in danger of starvation, while we in the western world are in danger of losing our stocks and our businesses and our flat screen TVs. Although I believe our economic situation is worrying and although I have no idea about the vastness of the problem, and do not understand the economy at all, some how I still believe that the real emergency lies not with us but with the people that need us to survive.

However, in light of this situation, I should note that we have not given up on the aid mission completely because of our economic crisis. In fact aid to Africa rose by 12% from 2006 to 2007, according to this OECD article.

However, still I must stress the point that unless the aid is used wisely it will do hardly any good, especially for the future. There have been instances where aid has been given to corrupted governments that have used it only for themselves. Also some aid goes into giving technology that is inappropriate, for example a tractor wont be much use if there aren't spare parts or diesel fuel supplied locally.

I say all this, but at the same time, I am not doing anything to help the situation in Africa, I have not played my part at all. After all, what does Kenya have to do with me? This plays into the realist perspective of international relations, which argues that the individual is selfish and power seeking, where each state works in pursuit of its own national interest. Realists argue that power trumps everything. Therefore, are we not helping the rest of the world to the best of our ability because we only care about our own state, our own power, and what surrounds ourselves? if so, a realist could argue that we do not erase debts owed to our country because we enjoy the power we have over those countries less fortunate than ourselves.

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The Good:

In this recent article related to giving aid, Obama impressively seems to be looking out for places in the world other than America. Apparently America is ready to donate $900m in Gaza aid. In the article it talks about the risk of the aid ending up in the hands of the wrong people (the Hamas), therefore showing that America is being wise as to who is recieving their aid:

'Any US aid would have to be approved by Congress, where some are wary that
funds could still end up with Hamas.'

The article says that instead the aid will be going to non governmental and UN organizations, and some to the Palestine authority.

Around 21,000 homes were destroyed or damaged during the recent conflict in Gaza. More than 1,000 people have been killed and 2/3rds of the population of Gaza are without power, water and medical supplies. It is predicted that billions will be needed in order to bring Gaza back to life.

Although we are doing good works by sending Gaza aid, in another article it describes how Gaza was in dire need of aid even before this war-like situation. There had been warnings of mal-nutrition and terrible sanitation. The article calls the nation 'aid-reliant'. This is what we need to battle in the long run. Countries need to be able to work on their own and work towards not being reliant on aid. Ideally they should be able to rely on themselves.

The Decline of Aid

I have come across something today in my search for articles. I was browsing stories on giving aid to LEDC’s (less economically developed countries) on the Sky News website (a British news channel). I noticed that the majority of the stories concerning aid to Africa were written in 2004 and 2005. All of the most recent stories are about helping out ourselves, and giving aid to our own falling corporations, because of the economic recession.

In 2005 there are stories such as these: ‘Africa on Agenda at G8 London Summit’, ‘Brown signs anti-poverty pact’, and ‘Countries to benefit from debt relief’. Then we turn to 2008 and 2009 with stories such as ‘Credit Crunch: US Treasury will spend up to $800bn under rescue plan’, ‘G8 promises not being delivered’ and ‘Chancellor faces grilling over plan to borrow Britain out of recession’. What happened to our dedication to eradicating world poverty?

One could argue that this is because the west no longer can afford to cancel debt and send aid to LEDCs, because we no longer have the money to even keep up our own lifestyles. One could also argue that America needs to tackle their own problems before they are equipped to tackle the poverty of the world. Basically, and quite understandably, developed countries can only afford charity and enthusiasm to deal with poverty while they are flourishing in their own economic success.

But, western world, in case you didn’t realize, people can still die while you are under economic crisis. World poverty doesn’t have a pause button. People cannot simply stop suffering and wait for us to sort out our own problems. In this article , written in 2005, the EU have just agreed to double aid to Africa. The deal says that help will be increased to 44 billion pounds by 2010. I would guess that this is no longer a top priority of the EU, after all 2010 is only one year from now. This can be supported by this article written in 2008, entitled ‘EU aid study finds goals to halve poverty have to be changed’. One statistic that proves that we are spending less money on international aid is: The 27 EU nations spent 0.38 percent of their gross national income of developmental aid in 2007 compared to the 0.41 percent in 2006. One part of this article can quickly sum up the situation our world is in right now, and why we find ourselves unable to give such high amounts of aid:

'A food crisis and economic turmoil are threatening to scuttle U.N. goals to
halve extreme povery around the world by 2015, accorind to an EU report released
Friday.'

While I mostly understand that we are unable to serve the needs of other countries while we have our own needs to attend to, this is yet another reminder of the fact that we live in a selfish world.

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In this article about aid (‘Billions wasted by aid system’) it is argued that money spent on giving aid is being wasted because everything is being used on short-term fixes during emergencies when it really needs to be going towards long-term developments. The article argues that it is the underlying issues of poverty that need to be eradicated and we shouldn’t just be aiming to tackle emergency relief.

I agree with this article: relief is good, but not very effective for the future. I believe we should really be aiming on helping LEDCs become self sufficient. We should begin projects and then put it into the hands of the people so that they can have jobs and then reap the benefits, instead of just placing some westernized object into their lives and leaving them to deal with it. We should be working with them in order to make their economy more efficient and profitable. We need to build their foundations. That would be real aid. The article says:

‘In countless previous emergencies, aid has often arrived too late, was
short-term, and policies were targeted too heavily on saving lives rather than
building resilience in the population’

I know that some aid isn’t pure aid because there are conditions attached to it. You can have this amount of money- IF you spend it on airplanes from a western company. Therefore the money is going straight back into the hands of the aid givers. Countries have spent lots and lots of money on things that are not essential for their survival.

Therefore, we don’t just need to give more aid, but we need to give it selflessly and wisely.

Current Events

Countries all over the world have shown their displeasure for western culture and ideals. This culminating disgust showed itself with a giant bang on September 11th 2001. America would appear to be a very ethnocentric country, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world wants to be just like America.

This BBC article, ‘Sudan call for Valentine Boycott’, is another display of the world deflecting western culture. This article informs us of the Muslim clerics in Sudan that are urging couples to ignore St. Valentine’s Day, arguing that it is ‘a western institution that could lead couples astray’. The article goes on to explain how normal things in western culture are unheard of in their own.

‘Correspondents say public displays of affection between men and women are
unheard of in Sudan's almost entirely Muslim north, with kissing and holding
hands on the street frowned upon in the conservative culture.’

We often forget the fact that some of our western behaviors, which are being increasingly thrust upon the rest of the world through globalization, can be seen as extreme or disrespectful to other countries. Imagine trying to live within your own culture when a different set of western ideas are, in their point of view, contaminating their country.

The article says that the Sudanese religious authorities have condemned Valentine’s Day before, hoping that young couples would instead save their money for marriage. The eastern world is angry at the west for inflicting our culture upon them. They glare upon us with distaste just as we fail to understand their way of life.


On a similar theme, this article, entitled ‘no kissing please, we are Indians’, discusses how a married couple in India were arrested for kissing publicly. It then goes onto explain how Indians are so easily scandalized by on screen kisses and even tabloid splashed pictures of Indian movie stars are seen as going against traditional family values.


Bollywood, the Indian equivalent of Hollywood, is a very different type of cinema. I have seen quite a few of them, and not once have I seen a couple kiss even though almost every Bollywood movie revolves around a love story. For a while you weren’t allowed to kiss, you could touch and swoon near to each other’s mouths but kissing was forbidden. Even today some actresses have taken pledges to never kiss on screen. One actress says that she decided to take the pledge because “I belong to a traditional family and my values do not allow me to indulge in such acts."

When I hear the use of the word ‘indulge’ here it just shoots out negative connotations. She uses the word indulge like how a person indulges in chocolate ice cream when they are on a diet, or how someone indulges in sinful fantasies. Clearly if she had an onscreen kiss she would see it as sinful and disrespectful.

Honestly, to me, the Indian cinema is a breath of fresh air, especially in our western movies when frequently a couple’s relationship only becomes fully established once they have slept together. If Indians are so scandalized by an on screen kiss, imagine what they would think of our modern cinema. This is another example of how cultures do not click and in fact the article talks about the integration of western culture as ‘Westoxication’, which is clearly not seen as a positive thing.

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In this article, entitled ‘Sudan has 6,000 child soldiers’, it talks about the dehumanization of children that is occurring due to the conflict in Darfur that has been going on since 2003.

‘Nearly 700,000 children, he said, had been born and grown up knowing nothing
but war.’

This is a terrible fact to digest, and I believe is one of the saddest parts of growing up in a climate of war. The Sudanese children, even though it is illegal under Sudanese and international law to have soldiers under the age of 18, have had their childhoods taken away from them. Some grown men have trouble pulling the trigger amidst times of war and yet here, children (some as young as 11) are being made to shoot and kill without reason.


We in the western world look upon our childhood with such fondness and remember those days of unprecedented joy and freedom from being judgmental. In contrast, the children within the crisis in Darfur have had their childhoods stolen from them. They pull triggers instead of jumping ropes.


The development of child soldiers is not a new phenomenon. It has happened before, like in the 10 year civil war of Sierra Leone. The Child soldiers in that instance had a reputation for extreme cruelty, says another article. This extreme cruelty may have come from the fact that their consciouses have been tainted with blood, and not given time to fully develop before the manipulation seeps in.


This has also happened in civil wars in Uganda where children were abducted by a Ugandan insurgent group called the Lord’s Resistance Army. They were then forced to sometimes kill their own family members. Having to commit such horrific acts has long after effects on the children, for example in this article about helping child soldiers, a woman says the most important thing is to build a relationship with the child and their family. However she goes on to say that this can take a lot of time just because that child has lost the ability to trust anyone.