| Straight to the Source
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 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 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
September 2008 |