The Agents of Virtue

Graham Hancock’s 1989 book The Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige and Corruption of the International Aid Business is still relevant more than three decades later. As we hand over hard-earned money to aid charities, little do we know that these charitable donations by the public rarely benefit the intended beneficiary.

Hancock sets out the key parameter which governs aid donations. This is that if a project is funded by foreigners, it will typically also be designed by foreigners, implemented by foreigners, and use foreign equipment which has been procured in foreign markets.

The result is that little, if any, input is required from locals, such as local labour, goods and services. This is rarely a significant part of any provision of aid, as the primary aim of donors is to benefit the donor country. Labour-intensive projects are few in Africa because so much donor aid is based on self-interest.

Charities have stepped into many African countries because the Government cared so little about the wellbeing of its people, particularly in the fields of health and education. That charitable help is welcome, but the African has rarely ended up actually being benefitted.

Putting on one side the reality that much of the aid donations are diverted into the hands of corrupt officials, aid is also often self-serving. A disaster or famine is welcomed as a ‘growth opportunity’ and the advertising to stimulate donations will use images of the disaster to make money. This keeps the charity alive and well but not necessarily the people in the images advertised.

But it could be asked, why don’t Africans help themselves more? The answer is that it is simply too easy to accept the donor gifts, and when they break down, they are discarded. Broken down, rusted, machinery is a normal sight across Africa. The only gifts that last a long time are the shipping containers that the equipment arrives in. These are useful, as people or animals can use them as homes, or for sleeping in.

Most local African communities see no long term benefit from aid. Aid projects have been a failure after decades of activity, because there is no thriving economy as a result of the aid.

Another aspect of aid is to try and change existing lifestyles, with charities constantly declaring that ‘their way is best’. They are staffed by people who tell the locals that they are blameworthy, sinners even, just for trying to earn a living in the locality, where money is hard to come by. Ultimately, people need money in their pocket to survive.

In his African travel book Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux wrote extensively about the work of aid agencies in Africa, which he called “agents of virtue”, from long experience living and working there. He gave ‘on the ground’ examples of aid agency failure, using every day examples such as housing and prostitution.

On housing, he used the example of a German aid agency which built pretty German-designed duplex houses on the outskirts of a Northern Ethiopian town. The houses quickly became broken down and unused. This is because the German agency did not take into account the actual requirements of the locals. The locals needed housing which could accommodate their goats as well as their families, otherwise the local hyenas would slaughter the animals. So the German houses were never used, and the Ethiopians stayed in their existing mud housing, which was better adapted to their environment.

Then there is prostitution. This is a taboo subject (in the West), but as a speaker of various African dialects, Paul Theroux talked to many who were working in the streets, bars and cafes. Shelters were created by charity workers with the laudable aim of taking prostitutes off the streets and ‘empower them’, but these ladies preferred to take the risk.

Money is an immediate need, not the Western ideal of a ‘better future’ or a ‘healthier life’. The reality is that these girls don’t care. As Theroux points out, longevity is not a feature of life in Africa, like in the West. “Time” is now.

Theroux further remarks that, in Africa, few lifetimes were long enough to accomplish anything substantial, or to see any task of value completed. The sequence is early marriage, early child-bearing, early death.

Is it time now perhaps to relieve Africa of its debts, and then leave Africa alone and let Africans have self-determination?

28 October 2022

[Book review: Graham Hancock – “The Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business”]