I stumbled across this article at http://projectdiaspora.org, written by a 19 yr old student in Ontario.  His name is Iyinoluwa “E” Aboyeji.  Good words brotha

-david

Although I have not been around that long, it seems like the debate over foreign aid has been at the centre of discussions about international development. Amidst this brouhaha about whether or not foriegn aid is good for development, I seek to raise a different question, is aid is central to development?

I think not. At least not in its current state.

This is particularly surprising because given my background, I should be heads over heels in love with aid.

I am one of aid’s children.

I attended Loyola Jesuit College, a Jesuit high school in Nigeria that was funded by the USAID and the New York Diocese of the Catholic Church. Judging mostly from my present circumstances, it clearly hasn’t done the worst job of providing for Nigerians like me, education and oppurtunity.

But then here is the point where the tingly feeling of anecdotal evidence must bow to the cold and hard facts.

Aid has not contributed enormously to economic growth, especially in Africa.

Even by the freindliest estimates, aid’s dissappointing impact has meant that it will take aid worth 10% of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to raise economic growth by 1% per year on average. To put that in context, this means it will take it will take another another $814 billion worth of aid over 55 years for sub Saharan Africa to grow to the 7% it needs to fulfill its millennium development goals.

I doubt these are the kind of results today’s many development experts would consider to be performance worthy of their time, resources and efforts.

More interestingly, it makes me wonder, why is aid still at the center of the development discourse? Especially when it must resort to petty aid/no aid binary arguments to make its point.

Allow me to venture one answer I have borrowed from respected academic, Alex De Waal, “aid is essentially, a western, Anglo-Saxon model of charitable endeavor that is being imposed on the rest of the world” . The truth is that because aid remains the west’s logical response to development, the entire discussion surrounding it is really not about what it contributes to actual development that it is about the fact that the west simply wishes to contribute to development in some manner, whether or not it is helpful.

It was not till I had sat through my first series of International Development classes that I realized this.

That class, filled with young, blue eyed Canadians looking to “change the world”, it seemed to me, was the wrong context for discussing any country’s international development. Indeed, there is no how, a classroom of 100 Canadian youngsters learning of foreign places into which they would be air dropped in their last year for a credit or two could be a more effective tool for development than the 6.2 million young people currently studying at sub par higher institutions across Africa.

But does this all matter to aid? Well, no.

Through that semester, as I listened to my teacher’s exaltations of micro-credit, negligent of the destruction high interest rates had caused it to wrought or idealistically championing of “cheap” agricultural technologies whose prices move quickly out of the farmer’s reach once the “resourceful” NGO’s grants and subsidies end, I became more convinced of the fact that international development has become all about how kind westerners could help poor countries whether or not in fact they actually can.

I call it, the “aid and development industrial complex”. It’s business? Manufacturing problems in the developing world that the developed world can feel good about “solving”.

Now do not get me wrong. I will be the first to admit that there remain certain cases where without such good natured generosity, whole peoples would have died and countless futures would not shine so bright. However, the west cannot in good conscience place its need for the self gratitude that comes from unsustaibable giving ahead of the interests of the developing world.

If aid must remain relevant to development, it must stop being so self-absorbed in all its imagined importance and listen more. More importantly, it should increase the capacity of their African counterparts to identify and solve their own problems. The current system where African higher education receives little or no support while universities in the west launch multi-million dollar “Development Research Centres” they don’t need is not only clearly unsustainable, but highly self serving.  It pushes an imperialistic mindset that allows western institutions to serve as command centres for Africa’s economic and political systems without the proper context and it leaches Africa’s best academic minds, leaving young Africans not fortunate enough to afford an expensive international education largely clueless and underesourced with respect to international development issues in their own countries.

“International Development” must in taking stock ask itself the important question:
Should international development teach developing countries to help themselves or should it, help developing countries to learn themselves?

I hope the field answers this question honestly. So that when I must obtain from a reputable university, my masters degree in International Development, there will be reason enough for me to be resident in Nairobi,  not New York.

Lyinoluwa “E” Aboyeji is a nineteen year old Nigerian junior at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Born and raised in Nigeria, he left his home in the Niger Delta to pursue an education abroad at age sixteen. Mr Aboyeji has worked with a number of local and international organisations most notably the World Youth Alliance, an international youth advocacy organisation with a permanent presence at the United Nations. He is currently the President of Imprint Publications, one of Canada’s largest student Newspapers where he also writes a weekly column called “E is for Error”. He also serves as Vice President (Projects) of the African Students Association at the University of Waterloo and Fundraising Manager of Harambe Africa. He is very interested in international development, economics, post secondary education and African political and philosophical issues. Unlike most other young people his age, this nerdy dude likely lacks sleep – and ofcourse, a normal life. Unreasonable as it may seem, his dream is to be a tenured professor at a reputable university before he is age twenty-five. (Photo by: Jonathan Menon)

I just ordered a drink. It is 1 pm. And my shoes are losing their luster.

Outside the wrought iron gate I see the dusty streets rise up in protest of passing faces.  Not with vigor, rather a tired and insulting humidity that settles heavy upon their hope, calm and matter-of-fact.  Merchants and children load wooden bicycles well beyond their capacity and push through this sweaty cloud. They are long-faced, determined, silent.  And the wind crawls at their backs, gentle enough to remind of the day’s toil without providing any true refreshment. 

The streets here were once inspired, but now luxury and even modest livelihood are rare to be found.  Buckled-down beneath 50,000 men in tattered fatigues and badges of manufactured authority, the city of Goma is full of stolen opportunity.  The soldiers are everywhere.  More than a million residents and refugees struggle daily to gain a foothold on the ladder to economic stability, but insecurity in the region disables almost every outlet for progress.

Farmers flee from rural communities to protect their families.  They move into crowded refugee camps and soon find themselves destitute. Stuck.  Those who remain to brave the war-zone are subject to the whim of warring factions who heavily tax the fruits of their labor. 

Where is my drink?  I’ve been waiting for half an hour. The bottles and glasses are all in plain view, but I am stuck here alone in my words.  The man who took my money has disappeared into the crowded streets. 

Until you turn your back on it, time here has a tendency to stand frustratingly still.  I am annoyed, furrow my brow and try to understand it, but this is a journey that is not best taken alone.  The disparity of cultures can be overwhelming.  I am relieved to hear a Texas twang just outside the gate. Catching a glimpse of a plain t-shirt in animated negotiation with a moto driver, I know that Jonathan has arrived. He enters.

Nods affirm a mutual annoyance with the day as Jon takes his seat beside me.  Behind him is the waiter, who has finally arrived with my drink.  His name is Peter. And he is slow.  Beside me Jon is ordering a pizza. I am conscious of the fact that this is a bad idea, but too tired to mention it.  Time constraints are an inevitable burden on the tired at heart.  Jon again points to the menu, an avocado with salmon filling for me. 

Outside, the merchants and children continue to push the heavy-laden bikes uphill. I wonder if they are porters. Or is this simply the fairest face of their work?  All too often children crawl through the smallest cracks into the earth, armed with a chisel and hammer, praying for mine supports to not collapse.  They dodge bullets in the fields.  And encounter innumerable atrocities committed against their families.

Throughout the town and countryside, the scene is painted with the powder-blue hats of the largest peacekeeping force in the world, MONUC.  Since 2000, the United Nations has grown its presence in DR Congo to more than 17,000 homesick soldiers.  Most come from cash-strapped countries themselves, primarily India and Pakistan. They are sent away from their families into one of the most naturally rich and conflict-filled regions on earth. 

I do not envy their lot in life.  They sit and wait and watch until fired upon.  The weak MONUC mandate often leaves them as sitting ducks. In a few short days I already encountered several stories of civilians who watched their friends and families killed as UN soldiers sat idly by - Unable to make a move. Unable to help. Ineffective.  A watchful eye as the people suffer.

About an hour ago I found myself standing among them…

One of our first stops in Goma was a visit to the MONUC Press Office.  It was there that we first met a man named William.  He asked if we would like special passes to the Press Conference.  We said “sure. That sounds great. What is the press conference? No, we are not joking. Seriously, tell us what it is?” William is loud. He has no filter.

It turns out that the Secretary General of the United Nations is coming to town. Ban ki-Moon.

This morning, few press were allowed and the etiquette was unfamiliar.  I was there, hot and standing, waiting outside an airport gate until the final passes were issued under an unusually cloudy sky and in the midst of several UN peacekeepers with automatic weapons.  My pores were nervous and clogged. Uncomfortable. 

Just outside the gate a UN commander approached me in search of a listening ear. He has been in Goma for a year and has three months remaining in his deployment.  This is his marathon.  With two young children at home, he asked if I am married as well. 

No. I am not. Typically, I am the chief architect of my own heartbreak.  I don’t need a war or economic circumstance to dictate this for me.  And, looking around, suddenly this does not seem so bad.  I wonder how readily these troops would swap places and stand in my shoes?

There have been reports of UN soldiers who secretly trade weapons for minerals here, equipping the lethal and the desperate.  Am I staring them square in the eye?  All I see are men, longing for home, missing their families in the midst of lengthy deployments. 

Is it really their fault? Maybe. But maybe these crimes are also grounded in the systems we use to deal with our worlds greatest problems. We must set them up for success better. We must discover a new paradigm for diplomacy. For reconciliation. For peacemaking.

Shaking hands and trying to examine the thoughts behind their guarded eyes, I found no answers before bidding the troops adieu and hiking to the highway.  Now I sit with Jon.  His pizza looks amazing. My avocado, not so much; rather, it comes as a bed of lettuce, thick with mayonnaise and slivers of salmon mixed sparingly within. Dammit. This is disgusting.

Dan calls. The SG has arrived in Goma.  Maybe he holds the answers to my most pressing queries. I leave my meal behind.  Here begins the BKM Experience.