The complexity of aid
Tuesday July 27 2010In an interesting article in the Guardian, Madeleine Bunting outlines the backlash against aid. She says "Aid cynicism is on the rise, boosted by the work of people such as US economist Bill Easterly, with his influential Aidwatch blog, and Dambisa Moyo, whose book Dead Aid attracted much attention despite the inadequacies of its proposals.
Most recently, Linda Polman's War Games paints a grim picture of humanitarian emergency aid over the last 20 years. These are all polemicists, but parts of their critiques hit home, and that has proved deeply disillusioning to a public which uncritically absorbed 20 years of aid agency advertising messages about the ease and effectiveness of aid: the sort of slogans which promised that if you just gave £5, it would save a child's life. It's this kind of simple emotional manipulation which raises millions in donations, but it blunts the public engagement in understanding why aid continues to be needed, why there are always more children in need of that fiver."
This speaks to the need for the education of the public about development issues. DFID has done a good job in this area over the years with schools. There is less clarity about the best ways to educate and engage the wider public around development. DEA recently held a roundtable in the House of Lords which explored this question, and will shortly be publishing a briefing note to take this debate forward.
