Aid or Dependency

I’ve been thinking a lot about dependence versus aid lately.  I’m sure there are dozens if not hundreds of people who make a decent living writing about every possible flawed outcome of aid and the “real motives” behind it (usually boiling down to donor country domestic interests).  Foreign aid’s greatest critics argue that aid is nothing but a bloated industry interested in lucrative paychecks that allow aid workers to live like kings in countries where a nickel still buys something.  I’m not this cynical, and I don’t think anyone who works in the development industry is. 

The history of development assistance is much like that of any other industry- it has made progress, adapted to new times and markets, expanded in some areas, died in others, and still could use a serious re-vamp in a lot of other stagnated practices.  The solution as to how to best fulfill the ultimate mission of uplifting people from poverty is still a work in progress.  Lately the best practices have finally turned towards requiring local ownership in projects as the only way to ensure success and mitigate collateral damage.  This makes a great deal of sense, but many aid organizations and donor countries still provide the resources, training, and monitoring for such “community owned” projects. 

I used to discount claims that foreign aid creates dependencies.  It seemed like a conservative smokescreen excuse for a callous and selfish worldview.  But lately I find myself sympathizing with dependency theory.  I get asked to “sponsor” on a daily basis- be it school fees, clothes, sports equipment, electronics, airtime, community projects, NGO projects, school projects, personal projects, business projects, etc... 

And it’s exhausting.  And frustrating.  And incredibly uncomfortable.  Especially when people I’ve grown close to ask for something that (if I scrimped and gave up the occasional luxury) I might be able to afford.  One day was filled with so many requests for sponsorship that I almost cried in frustration.  By comparison, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been asked for something in exchange for work.  When I do break down and buy something small for the community that still puts a big dent in my monthly earnings, I am almost never shown the gratitude I desire for such benevolence, and I walk away stinging, vowing not to repeat the mistake again.      

When I tell less educated Swazis I’m not some aid worker making an aid worker’s salary who can afford to give alms, they typically don’t believe me.  White skin= rich.  I’ve heard that the only white people one village saw was when white people drove by in a car and threw candy out the window without even stopping to get out.  Barf…And I understand that a lifetime of conditioning would make you think I am Miss Moneybags. 

But at the same time, what kind of mentality must one have to ask for something for free before asking to work for it?  How did this mentality develop?  Did it come from shoe drops, clothing drops, food drops, sponsoring, etc?  Ignoring the systemic factors of colonialism and world trade inequalities, how does a culture of aid over self-sufficiency even develop?  Is what I’m witnessing the product of foreign aid, or is it a product of poverty? 

And to be fair, many Swazis are aware of the aid world’s dependency dilemma.  When I deny someone sponsorship, it always comes with the “teach a man to fish versus feed him for a day” line.  Swazis nod.  They typically understand that this is the line that aid workers give.  They even believe the line usually and assure me that they, too, would like to see a Swaziland so empowered that it doesn’t need outside assistance.  But in the meantime, they need the money yesterday.    

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether or not aid creates dependencies.  You can’t use dependency theory as an excuse not to care about others.  You can only learn from past mistakes. 

On a slightly related note, I’ve been trying to expand my understanding of the aid world by reading some more books which might go against what I believe or know.   The best was “Letting them die: why HIV/AIDS prevention programmes fail” by Catherine Campbell.  It is based on a longitudinal study of a mining community project in South Africa (where many Swazis work and which are notorious for catastrophically high HIV infection rates).  On paper, the community-led project was beyond even industry standards, but it failed to instill change towards consistent condom use.  There are some interesting tidbits that all HIV prevention programs could learn from.  For instance, the greatest determinant of a young girl engaging in unsafe sexual activity is how much affection she feels her parents have for her.  Another interesting tidbit was that sex without a condom was somehow perceived by men as fulfilling a need for intimacy/affection in an extremely brutal social setting.  HIV prevention must move beyond the condom demonstrations and peer educators, but focus holistically on the environment of poverty, extreme patriarchy, and the sense of hopelessness/fatalism that begets potentially deadly behavioral choices.