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“Aid is just a stop-gap. Commerce—entrepreneurial capitalism—takes more people out of poverty than aid.” --Bono Bono's brave enough to admit this. Kenyan eco

• cbr 11y ago
  Reading the interview you link it's pretty clear that the kind of aid Shikwati is arguing against is very different than the kind GiveDirectly does. For example: A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unscrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN's World Food Program. Shikwati objects to food dumping, which is a serious way that an activity we classify under "aid" can be harmful: it supports governmental corruption and undercuts farmers and businesses. But identifying individual poor households and transferring money to them directly, with strong monitoring and evaluation, is so different that calling them both "aid" is kind of misleading.
• BigChiefSmokem 11y ago
  Please that's the same bull Ronald Reagan used to spew - That poor people are poor because they choose to.
  • MCRed 11y ago
    No, it's not. Let me give you an example. In africa there used to be a great many tailors. This was a profession that was viable and quite respected on the continent long after the western world had gone to pre-made clothes. In part this was because the country had not modernized. Then the aid came. The aid came in many forms, but one of the forms was millions upon millions of T-shirts and jeans. The entire profession of being a tailor has been eliminated (of course except for the very rich people.) I'm not saying africans should be tailors, but pointing out that aid distorts the market, and distorts the economy and can undermine it if it's not well thought out. This is what Bono was saying and this is one of the lessons that GiveDirectly seems to have learned.
    • tomjen3 11y ago
      It is easy to see the taylors who go out of business, it is a lot more difficult to see the million upon millions of people those millions upon millions of jeans are now keeping warm. If we go from aid to commerce the tailors won't come back, but billions upon billions of consumer items will flood into Africa. As the country gets richer there is going to be at least a 300 million women who aspire to owning a washing machine, a generator (or other source of power) and indoor pluming. Say what you want about capitalism and industrialization, but short of something like a first contact with the Culture, no other system on the planet can satisfy those needs. And they deserve to be satisfied.
• reagency 11y ago
  Please gave the courtesy to know what you are talking about before criticizing a program.