From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERMore broadly, many of today’s successful countries began theirtake-off with an influx of aid, such as the US Marshall Plan thattransformed post-war Europe, the aid that funded the initial take-offof Botswana, Taiwan, and South Korea, and the transformation ofSpain and Ireland by EU structural funds.Aid can redistribute wealth from rich regions, countries, and peopleto poor ones, fight deprivation and invest in global public goods, suchas disease control and environmental protection. However, aid cannotachieve such progress on its own. Well-designed aid programmescomplement and support national and community development efforts,strengthening both effective states and active citizens. In contrast,poorly designed aid competes with states and citizens or evenundermines them.Overseas development assistance (ODA), as aid is officially called,is a relatively recent phenomenon, one born out of decolonisation andreconstruction after the Second World War. Its birth is often linked tothe inaugural address of US President Harry Truman in 1949, inwhich he announced that ‘For the first time in history, humanitypossesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of …the halfof the people of the world living in conditions approaching misery.’The war years and their immediate aftermath saw the creation ofmany of the organisations that still dominate the international aidscene today, including the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF, andinternational NGOs.Aid inspires passion. Zealous advocates see aid as one of the greatcauses of modern times and argue that a ‘big push’ can lead to the‘end of poverty’, in the title of the book by perhaps its most prominentadvocate, Jeffrey Sachs. Equally passionate sceptics point out thatPresident Truman’s words of 1949 could just as easily reflect the stateof the world 60 years later. If $2.3 trillion in aid since 1950 has hadso little impact, they argue, surely aid doesn’t work? 123 Eminenteconomists on both sides swap contradictory numbers and conclusions(see Table 5.2 on page 359). Others see aid as being driven primarily byself-interest and foreign policy, arguing that the allocation of aid basedon Cold War alliances (however grisly the regime) has now morphedinto aid based on support for the ‘war on terror’, which has little to dowith development need.354