Aid aiding corruption
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
THE question “Who benefits from aid?” is posed, and answered thus: only the players in the aid game viz. the autocrats and the plutocrats. The poor, grassroots people simply miss out. More: they are worsted in the process.
Nothing is truer of the poor and working peoples of the South Pacific islands: they are harmed by aid. Apart from its demoralising effects, robbing them of ardour and iniative for work, substituting guilt and submission for natural pride, we now find aid contributes to corruption, deception, and fraud on the part of islanders in high places.
Most islands now publish statements of revenue intakes. But the so-called “rev enues” are ultimately realised in aid thus freeing up the locally-generated funds for immoral and unlawful allocations. This is the fate of aid in the islands it abets
corruption, erodes morale, and permanently cheapens people’s lives. For even if, assuming for argument’s sake, aid donors are sincere, they simply do not know who are the real recipients of aid.
For this category, in rigidly traditional societies like those of the South Pacific, is determined not by the donors’ directions but by the traditions of the receiving community of which the donor knows, and will always know, nothing.
The donor usually takes the position that this is an area in which she cannot help (“interfere” is the term employed). This shows the donor takes an irresponsible attitude in relation to the recipients and total lack of concern for her taxpayers’ sacrifices.
But the Pacific islands are to be blamed also. None has a theory of aid. None has a vision in relation to aid. Such a vision would necessarily be tied to what is best in their cultures.
But precious little of aid is spent on real culture. A case in point is the South Pacific Arts Festival.
Exactly how does this festival promote and develop Pacific arts? It’s certainly beyond me ifit’s other than herding together of innocent peoples to attract a pretty penny for the host city, and more than a pretty penny for the TV multinationals and all the network of beneficiaries in such events.
I have been a student of our dances for quite some time, and presenting dancers to the camera lens of unprincipled businessmen who pay next to nothing is certainly not my idea of developing our dances. And the costs in man-hours that these groups pay!
Months of labour and preparations, endless rehearsals, costs of processing and curing of materials, weaving, dyeing, etcetera, etcetera. And what do they, especially the masters and composers, get for it? Just well-rehearsed mouthfuls of — if the combination is possible insincere gratitude! The point is: culture is that which donors must avoid since it takes them into terra incognita , and if they venture there it’s only to gratify their
capitalistic aims.
The islands must ask themselves the questions “Where will we be 30 years hence?”, “What happens after the dust of change settles down?” If the islanders fail to construct a vision
of their future they’ll all be eaten up by to put it mildly that barbaric notion of development sponsored by aid donors.
According to The Australian Aid Program 1989-90 Australian Aid has this for its objective: “To promote the economic and social advance ment of the peoples of developing countries in response to Australia’s humanitarian concerns, as well as Australia’s foreign policy and commercial interests.”
Aid objectives everywhere are listed similarly.
First are the high-sounding but meaningless aims (for they can be interpreted in any way you like), with the real aim of the aid effort last of all.
What, for example, can “humanitarian concerns” mean in this context? Are they felt by the donor in pangs like the lion hankering for meat or the poor or the Third World the need to shake off squalor, disease and debilitating
poverty? The whole cult of infrastructure development is associated with a fetish of professionalism that masks utter incompetence, sharp practices, and blatant disregard for
taxpayers’ hardships.
There is a major project in Tonga which is now undergoing its fourth “revision” involving each time scrapping of plans, tearing down of work already done, and harassment for the Tongan support, non-expert staff. This is typical and what a waste!
The worship of professionals has shown them up as they really are experts in wastage who line their pockets while so engaged. As for the foreign policy part, an ACFOA 1986 paper stated “ADAB and aid issues are not really the stuff of diplomacy and Foreign Affairs”. Though this statement needs careful interpretation, I believe the general relationships stated are still the same. That leaves us with commercial interests as the only motive for the aid exercise in the islands.
Foreign Aid may make two contributions to islanders. First, training in utilisation of what they already have. I dare state, against the materialistic but attractive aid philosophy (Freud it was, I think, who says evil is attractive), that what islanders need most is a feel for proper and full utilisation of existing resources, the creative us of what they have. Introduction of raw materials must wait for attitudes, and outlooks should be the first to be adapted. The islands now have trained people who know the situation better in a number of areas, but are shunted off to other minor tasks when foreign “experts” swarm into the land.
The other area for aid is’education. Again, in opposition to the wicked aid doctrine, I say the education Pacific islanders need now is one to make them think much more than to give them manual skills. The latter and economic ability are ultimately frustrating if independent thinking and critical understanding are absent.
And aid is mostly available for low-level studies only. US aid very rarely, if every, supports postgraduate studies by Pacific islanders. The idea is to bar islanders from entering the exclusive and rarefied world of R. Callick’s “glitz of imported advice” (Islands Business, August). This must remain the monopoly of Uncle Sam.
Why can’t aid be used to develop advisers and experts from the islands? The Hungarian proverb should apply here too, “What one fool can do, another can!” □