Two books written in the last few years draw the lines of two camps, or two approaches to international development. Both books are “must reads” for those who care about poverty in the poorest of nations. And having read them, one must decide which approach to invest in, for the two approaches are fundamentally different. 

One book is Jeffrey Sach’s The End of Poverty (2005); the other is William Easterly’s White Man’s Burden (2006). Sachs is a Harvard economist whose career it has been to advise country governments, the World Bank and other international financial institutions on how to bring nations out of poverty. He points out that many poor countries have climbed out of poverty in recent decades. Many of those that have remained poor are so poor that they cannot climb out. He describes a ladder of progress that hovers above such countries. If they can just get some help to reach the bottom rung, they can climb from there on their own.

According to Sachs, to help the poorest nations reach the bottom rung, the wealthy nations need to provide more aid money and distribute it through the United Nations’ programs. This is the crux of the One Campaign, a citizen-based lobby to see the United States give increase its international aid to one percent of its GNP. More specifically, they want the money to go towards the internationally determined Millenium Development Goals. U2 lead singer, Bono, is another famous proponent of this approach.

William Easterly, a former economist for the World Bank, argues that Sach’s recipe is evidence that the international development institutions are blind to history. He shows that this is only their most recent call over many decades for a “Big Push” to end poverty. He refers to the proponents of the Big Push as “Planners” and contrasts them with “Searchers.”  Planners work from the top down, while Searchers start at the grassroots. Planners apply templates to entire countries, while Searchers look for solutions that grow out of local communities.

Easterly points out that Planners work in a system that has little knowledge of what is happening on the ground and no feedback on what works. Their primary measure of success is the amount of funds distributed – not the frequency or magnitude of results obtained. Moreover, government corruption at national and local levels prevents many international aid donations from reaching the point of actual benefit to those in need.

Africa Rising is an example of a Searcher approach. We support indigenous solutions, not those brought in from the outside. And we go straight to the grassroots where funds are put directly to work and not siphoned off by layers of bureaucracy. We find organizations with a proven track record and transparency in their finances. We then help them develop networks with other organizations in Africa and the West. Within those networks they find opportunities to help and be helped, multiplying the effectiveness of each organization.

We believe that Africans working at the grassroots provide the best answers to Africa’s challenges; and the best way to have a positive impact in Africa is aid those organizations.

September 2008