"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries."
-- Douglas Casey - classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University
But foreign Aid comes with a feel-good factor. We can be satisfied that we are - our countries are - contributing to the economic well-being of starving people in the Third World. Even if only a small percentage of our money goes to that aid, at least we did something positive. Or did we?
Zambian writer Evans Munyemesha does not think so. In an article titled International Aid, published in The Zambian, he charges that development aid, "has financed the creation of monstrous projects that, at vast expense, have devastated the environment and ruined lives". Rather than getting down to "the hard task of wealth creation", Munyemesha says, "easy handouts" have been substituted "for the rigors of self-help", leaving the receiving countries economically crippled and their people worse off than before. If we look at results, African 'aid' has been an unmitigated disaster:
"[Africa] has lost self-sufficiency in food production that it enjoyed before development assistance was invented, and during the past few decades, has become instead a continent-sized beggar hopelessly dependent on the largesse of outsiders---per-capita food production has fallen in every year since the 1960s. Seven out of every ten Africans, are now reckoned to be destitute or on the verge of extreme poverty, with the result that the continent has the highest infant mortality rates in the world, the lowest average life-expectancies in the world, the lowest literacy rates, the fewest doctors per head of population, and the fewest children in school."
And the situation in other parts of the world does not seem much better.
You might say, that with all the money we're paying, there must be something wrong with the receivers of our aid. The temptation is to cast around for logical reasons why our good intentions don't bear fruit. Corruption ... lazyness ... hold it for a moment. Apart from the on-the-ground view of our Zambian observer (you can see the whole article further down) we have another witness - John Perkins, a highly paid economist formerly working for an international development consultancy. In his book titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, Perkins describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.
"Basically what we were trained to do and what our job is to do is to build up the American empire. To bring -- to create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we’ve been very successful. We’ve built the largest empire in the history of the world. It's been done over the last 50 years since World War II with very little military might, actually. It's only in rare instances like Iraq where the military comes in as a last resort. This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life..."
said John Perkins when he was interviewed by Amy Godman. You can find a transcription and get the audio on Democracynow.org. Much of the responsibility for the disaster, says Perkins, is the World Bank's and the International Monetary Fund's, but he is also optimistic that the situation can be changed, saying "I believe the World Bank and other institutions can be turned around and do what they were originally intended to do, which is help reconstruct devastated parts of the world. Help -- genuinely help poor people."
Well, we certainly would have to find ways to make the 'aid' actually arrive at the people, and to help them become self-sufficient, not lead them into further dependency.
Thanks to Neal Perochet of Environmental Restoration International, for bringing the article of Evans Munyemesha to my attention. Neal has been working on the ground in Africa and elsewhere, to make communities self-sufficient through environmental restoration.
Here's the article, first published in The Zambian, which does go quite a way in shaking our feel-good factor on foreign aid or, as it's also mistakenly called, "development aid"...
With international ‘aid’ to soon reach $100 billion a year (from $60 billion), it will be the final kick in the teeth of the poor, crippling further their Third World economies. Indeed, (as I have found out after researching through reports and what-not), it’s often profoundly dangerous to the poor and inimical to their interests to have ‘aid’ imposed upon them: It has financed the creation of monstrous projects that, at vast expense, have devastated the environment and ruined lives; it has facilitated the emergence of fantastical and devious bureaucracies staffed by legions of self-serving hypocrites; it has sapped the initiative, and creativity and enterprise of ordinary people and substituted the superficial and irrelevant showiness of imported advice; it has sucked potential entrepreneurs and intellectuals in the developing countries everywhere into non-productive administrative activities; it has created a ‘moral tone’ in international affairs that denies the hard task of wealth creation and that substitutes easy handouts for the rigors of self-help; in addition, throughout the Third World, it has allowed the dead grip of imposed officialdom to suppress popular choice and individual freedom. Call it what you will---but I will call it for what it is: Noble Colonialism! Ain’t that a ‘female dog’?
‘Aid’ [they call it] has its defenders, not least the highly paid public-relations men and women who spend millions of dollars justifying the continued existence of the agencies that employ them. Such professional communicators must reject out of hand the obvious conclusions symbolized by the white elephants of international ‘aid’ agencies: that ‘aid’ is a waste of money and time, that its results are fundamentally bad, and that ---far from being increased--- it should be stopped forthwith before more damage is done.
Whenever such suggestions are made the lobbyists throw up their hands in horror and consternation. Despite some regrettable failures, they protest, ‘aid’ is justified by its successes; despite some glitches and problems, it’s essentially something that works; most important of all ---the emotional touch, the appeal to the heartstrings ---they argue with passion that ‘aid’ must not be stopped because the poor could not survive without it. Such wealthy lunacy! The Brandt Commission provided a classic example of this thought as it loudly screamed and I quote: ‘For the poorest countries ‘aid’ is essential to survival.’
Such statements, however, patronize and undervalue the people of the poor countries concerned. They are, in addition, logically indefensible when uttered by those who also want us to believe that ‘aid’ works. Throughout history and pre-history all countries everywhere got by perfectly all right without any ‘aid’ at all. Furthermore, in the 1950s they got by with much less ‘aid’ than they did, for example, in the 1970s--- and were apparently none the worse for the experience. Now, suddenly, at the tail end of almost sixty years of development assistance, we are told that large numbers of the same countries have lost the ability to survive a moment longer unless they continue to receive ever-larger amounts of ‘aid’. If this is indeed the case ---and if the only measurable impact of all these decades of development has been to turn resolute and tenacious survivors into helpless dependents ---then it seems to me to be beyond dispute that ‘aid’ does not work. Despite the rich, flowing, and seductive language of the Brandt Commission reports, there is a stark lack of concession that prudent management of resources, a willingness to share responsibility and power among nations to fulfill common needs, ensure the right of personal livelihood, improve living standards, and guarantee the well-being of each and every individual in our global village are simply missing in the international ‘aid’ agendas.
Irredeemably out of touch with the poor, and the tedious day-to-day realities of their lives, it’s little wonder that the dignified gangsters in the fraudulent scheme of foreign ‘aid’ for Third World development so unfailingly come up with bizarre and extraneous projects like donating huge supplies of slimming products and frostbite medicine to starving Somalis in the 80s---projects that are worthless, even harmful, to those they are intended to benefit. All that these projects do is meet the bureaucratic needs of the agencies themselves, the career needs of their staff, and the commercial needs of suppliers from whom equipment and services are procured.
It’s not outside our grasp to note that the ‘well-intentioned’ efforts of our ‘well-wishing’ guests in the business of international ‘aid’ have been a sinking ship; a red-faced failure: This is clearly evidenced by the continued existence of the ‘aid’ agencies. If they were doing a good job of promoting development among the poor [which is what they actually tell us], then, presumably, they should have put themselves out of business by now. Over fifty years they should have dealt systematically with the problems that they were established to solve, closed up shop and stopped spending public funds from developed countries. But, no, they want to discuss malnutrition in Uganda while having steak dinners flown in from London; they want to discuss irrigation in Kenya while scuba-diving along the Kenyan beaches; they want to eradicate tsetse flies in Mpongwe, Zambia while sipping Scotch-over-rocks imported duty-free from Wales.
In fact they have firmly planted their roots among the poor despite the rapid changes that have taken place over time. Most of them have grown from year to year with ever bigger budgets, ever more projects to administer (and then abandon) and ever more staff on their ever-expanding payrolls---all this in the name of helping the poor!
They never cease to seize a moment to plaster their faces in front of any visiting camera in sight while blabbing about the great mission they have embarked on in the interests of the lowly and deprived. The poor would be less poor if their foreign benefactors would not waste generously donated funds by good folks on over-priced Swiss shades, English biscuits, French vacations, Italian shoes, Japanese gizmos and German silk undies.
Still yet, if the statement that ‘aid works’ is true, then presumably the poor should be in much better shape than they were before they first began to receive it more than half a century ago. If so, then ‘aid’sjob should by now be nearly over and it ought to be possible to begin gradual withdrawal without hurting anyone. Right?
Of course, the truth and ugly reality of it all is that most poor people in the most poor countries most of the time never receive or even make contact with ‘aid’ in any tangible shape or form: whether it’s present or absent, increased or decreased, are thus issues that are simply irrelevant to the ways in which they conduct their daily lives. After the multi-billion-dollar ‘financial flows’ involved have been shaken through the sieve of over-priced and irrelevant goods that must be bought in the donor countries, filtered again in then hundreds of thousands of foreign ‘experts’, ‘professionals’ (and whatever else cute foreign title you may call them by!) and ‘aid’ agency staff, skimmed off by dishonest commission agents, and stolen by glossy-bellied corrupt Ministers and Presidents, there is really very little left to go around. This little, furthermore, is then used thoughtlessly, or maliciously, or irresponsibly by those in power---who have no mandate from the poor, who do not consult with them and who are utterly indifferent to their plight. Small wonder, then, the effects of ‘aid’ are so often vicious and destructive for the most vulnerable members of the human society.
All this notwithstanding, what is to be said about ‘aid’s much-vaunted ‘successes’?
Of the Third World, Africa contains many lessons for the fraud of ‘aid’. It has lost self-sufficiency in food production that it enjoyed before development assistance was invented, and during the past few decades, has become instead a continent-sized beggar hopelessly dependent on the largesse of outsiders---per-capita food production has fallen in every year since the 1960s. Seven out of every ten Africans, are furthermore, now reckoned to be destitute or on the verge of extreme poverty, with the result that the continent has the highest infant mortality rates in the world, the lowest average life-expectancies in the world, the lowest literacy rates, the fewest doctors per head of population, and the fewest children in school. Tellingly, after Africa became the most ‘aided’ continent in the solar system in the last decade, its Gross Domestic Product per capita shrunk by an average of 3.4 per cent per annum. Sob, sob sob!!!
In the other Third World countries (like Bangladesh, Mexico, etc.), the story is the same: Grim and pathetic! Thanks to ‘aid’. Debts have consistently increased, and economic growth consistently decreased. All this spurred on by the one-size-fits-all foreign ‘aid’ policy. This sick and loathsome policy presumes not only that the ‘aid’ donors have a fairly good idea what growth-promoting policies are, but that these policies are the same everywhere. Excuse me, but this is a bunch of dung! What ‘aid’? With deepening poverty in almost every Third World country where ‘aid’ had (and still has) its hand fittingly wrapped around the necks of the poor, it would seem official that it [development ‘aid’] is neither necessary nor sufficient for ‘development’: the poor thrive without it in some countries; in others, where it is plentifully available, they suffer the most deplorable miseries. Such suffering furthermore occurs not in spite of ‘aid’ but because of it.
To continue with the trick of ‘aid’ seems to me to be generously absurd. Garnered and justified in the name of the destitute and the vulnerable, ‘aid’s main function in the past half-century has been to create and then entrench a powerful new breed of wealthy, privileged and accountable-to-one gang of foreign parasites. In this camp of screw-the-poor-out-of-existence made up of the World Bank, IMF, United Nations and other worthless behemoths of international mediocrity, ‘aid’---and nothing else---has provided ‘jobs for the boys’ and has permitted record-breaking self-serving behavior, arrogance, paternalism, and fearless cowardice. At the same time, in the Third World, ‘aid’ has perpetuated the rule of incompetent ‘important’ fools whose leadership would be more appropriate at raising monkeys at the zoo; it has allowed governments characterized by momentous ignorance and irresponsibility to thrive; last but not least, it has condoned---and in some cases facilitated ---the most consistent and grievous abuses of human rights that have occurred anywhere in the world since the dinosaurs lived.
In these days of enlightened minds, the time is nigh for the ‘Masters of Disasters’ to depart. Their ouster is achievable only if and when the poor people are willing to rediscover ways to assist one another directly according to the their needs and aspirations as they themselves define them, in line with priorities that they themselves have set, and guided by their own agendas.
Forget 'Aid'! Give them an equal opportunity!
September 2010:
Here some links to a recently published book on the subject of foreign aid and its effects:
Book:DEAD AID Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
In the past fifty years, more than $1 trillion in development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Has this assistance improved the lives of Africans? No. In fact, across the continent, the recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse—much worse.
In Dead Aid, Dambisa Moyo describes the state of postwar development policy in Africa today and unflinchingly confronts one of the greatest myths of our time: that billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth. In fact, poverty levels continue to escalate and growth rates have steadily declined—and millions continue to suffer.
Really wicked solutions needed to beat Bush Far from being the most positive US president towards Africa in 40 years, as Bob Geldof maintains, the incumbent of the White House is the biggest impediment to a fair deal for the world's most impoverished nations...
A Program to Fight Malaria in Africa Draws Questions
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. - Published: June 11, 2005 Though its budget for fighting malaria has risen since 1998 to $90 million from $14 million, the United States' foreign aid agency is spending 95 percent of the money on consultants and less than 5 percent on mosquito nets, drugs and insecticide spraying to fight the disease. The spending priorities have touched off an intense debate between the agency, the United States Agency for International Development and its critics, who include two of the Senate's most conservative Republicans.
A truckload of nonsense - by George Monbiot The G8 plan to save Africa comes with conditions that make it little more than an extortion racket...
Food and Energy Security: Local Systems Global Solidarity British Parliamentarian Alan Simpson offers a brilliant analysis of what's wrong with current national and international policies on food and energy and why we must break all the rules
Africa Needs Freedom, Not "Aid"
by Sheldon Richman, July 18, 2005 Politicians are never more dangerous than when they are thinking, "We've got to do something!"
'Vulture funds' threat to developing world
President Bush declared the United States was taking on the challenges of global hunger, poverty and disease, and urged support for debt relief, which he called the best hope for eliminating poverty. But what exactly are wealthy nations doing to reduce the debt of impoverished countries? Today we take a close look at companies known as "vulture funds." Vulture fund companies buy up the debt of poor countries at cheap prices, and then demand payments much higher than the original amount of the debt, often taking poor countries to court when they cannot afford to repay. Greg Palast's BBC report on vulture funds: Today a high court judge in London ruled on the case that a vulture fund can extract more than $20 million from Zambia for a debt which it bought for just $4 million.
John Perkins: Jerk, Con-man, Shill
Perkins had switched sides - and, in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man gets his soul back from Satan only a little soiled. In Secret History, the personal confession turns into an illuminating, world-spanning jeremiad. From Latin America to Africa to the Middle East, Perkins leaps from his own story to the widespread caused by the greed armies sent marching from the boardrooms of New York and London. Today, Perkins is my confrere and colleague. He wears his hair longish and I wear mine . . . well, I've stopped wearing hair altogether. And in his writings today, Perkins' heart goes out to the Third World targets of this new empire ruled by shock troops and spread sheets. His empathy extends to those in the occupied territory known as the USA. Because, says Perkins, when the wretchedly ripped-off of the Earth rise in rebellion, the lash of the backlash is felt by the children of the lobstermen of New Hampshire, shivering under Humvees in Falluja, and never the EHM's clients' fortunate sons, frolicking in their Ferraris.
Africa to Bono: "Go home!"
We can spend billions importing medication, or you can invest in local farms that grow the Artemisinin, a Chinese herb with potent anti-malarial properties, and the factories that process it. We can continue the endless cycle of need and dependency, or you can create jobs, develop indigenous capacity, and build a sustainable future.
Aid can alleviate immediate misery and that is why we love it. Charity is a profoundly human response to all those images that pull on our heartstrings. But all evidence points to the maddening conclusion that, in the long run, aid not only has no positive effect on economic growth, it may even undermine it.
The only way Africa will develop and create wealth is if it can attract foreign capital and trade its goods on the world market like every other economically successful country does.
US food aid is 'wrecking' Africa, claims charity
Now Care, one of the world's biggest charities, has announced that it will boycott the controversial policy of selling tons of heavily subsidised US produced food in African countries. Care wants the US government to send money to buy food locally, rather than unwanted US produced food. The US arm of the charity says America is causing rather than reducing hunger with a decree that US food aid must be sold rather than directly distributed to those facing starvation. In America, the subsidies for corn in particular, help underpin the junk food industry, which uses corn extracts as a sweetener, creating a home-grown a health crisis.
Leading USA-Based Hunger Organization Rejects U.S. Food Aid is a Form of Colonialism--Not Charity
One of the largest international aid organizations in the world turned the food aid industry on its head recently by declaring that they will turn down 46 million dollars in food subsidies from the U.S. government.The United States budgets 2 billion dollars a year in food aid, which buys U.S. crops to feed populations facing starvation amidst crisis or those that endure chronic hunger. But the U.S.-based CARE International has forfeited its substantial slice of the food aid pie that is the U.S. "Food for Peace" program, claiming that the way the U.S. government distributes food hurts small poor farmers in the very communities and countries the program is supposed to help.
Manufacturing a Food Crisis
The Mexican food crisis cannot be fully understood without taking into account the fact that in the years preceding the tortilla crisis, the homeland of corn had been converted to a corn-importing economy by "free market" policies promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and Washington. The process began with the early 1980s debt crisis.
That the global food crisis stems mainly from free-market restructuring of agriculture is clearer in the case of rice. Unlike corn, less than 10 percent of world rice production is traded. Moreover, there has been no diversion of rice from food consumption to biofuels. Yet this year alone, prices nearly tripled...
The Food Crisis: Destroying African Agriculture
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains.
Whether in Latin America, Asia, or Africa, the story has been the same: the destabilization of peasant producers by a one-two punch of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs that gutted government investment in the countryside followed by the massive influx of subsidized U.S. and European Union agricultural imports after the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture pried open markets.
Why Food Aid Should Be Bought Locally, Not Shipped Halfway Around the World
Meet Khalida Mahmoud, a 29-year-old woman whose farming family was driven into worsening poverty, after U.S. food aid poured into her home region of eastern Sudan. That's not how food aid is supposed to work, but just look at the policy: your tax dollars are used to buy grain from U.S. factory farms, the same giant corporations that already receive $26 billion in tax subsidies. Then the grain is transported halfway around the world, using thousands of gallons of fossil fuel and releasing tons of harmful carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The transport typically takes months while hungry people grow more desperate.
Once the food finally arrives, it floods agricultural markets, destabilizing fragile local economies. Small farmers are the first to go bankrupt.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Saturday June 4 2005
updated on Tuesday July 12 2011
URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/06/04/third_world_economy_is_foreign_aid_destructive.htm
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Readers' Comments
A discussion between Michael, myself, and Neal, that's relevant to small scale on-the-ground energy production in developing countries - which I would like to share with you:
From: m.@...
To: Sepp Hasslberger
Cc: Neal
Subject: Wind
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005
Dear Sepp,
Saw this article, and particularly that map included, and thought you might like to see it. I'd add that the systems they use are not the most efficient in generating electricity either, as a number of people are independently working on higher voltage systems which create less reactive drag while producing greater output (higher efficiencies). Looking at this, plus the potential of solar power such as the vortex column mentioned in Elliot's book, yield greater possibilities for a distributed network of power less susceptible to power outages, without even bringing in the Bearden MEG, which can be used anywhere, is portable, and requires no conventional external energy source. I don't know of anyone doing research on supercapacitors for local energy storage other than in cars, but they also offer the option of portable on-demand power sources for emergencies.
Kind Regards,
Michael
- - - - - - -
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 19:21:50 +0200
To: m@...
From: Sepp Hasslberger
Subject: Re: Wind
Cc: Neal
Hi Michael,
The wind link - yes, there certainly is enough wind to make all of our electricity if we want to, and I bet there is enough movement of waves and tides in the seas to make that much many times over. It's really only a question of will. Our will is married to oil, it seems, because of overriding economic considerations. It's just better business. You can't charge by the hour of wind, once the generator is installed, and even small wind turbines are possible for energy independence of those who want it:
From: m.@...
To: Sepp Hasslberger
Cc: Neal
Subject: Re: Wind
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:09:01 +0000
Dear Sepp,
Somewhere along the way here a new economic model has to begin to take hold - perhaps spirited on by the right people of fame who are willing to help, such as Bob Geldorf. There are literally a million ways to "skin the energy cat," and just not enough people at this point who are actually paying attention to force the hands of those hwo do control energy. Television, good or bad, has one show after another of people building or using energy and fuel hogging vehicles while not one of those shows mentions the totally irresponsible impact of what they are doing. Perhaps what's needed now is a show which goes from one alternative energy installation to another as they are building them to show people that it can be done and how.
I'm so tired of seeing hypocritical shows like Orange County Choppers, where they build a $150,000 (!) theme motorcycle dedicated to POWs, firemen, or other cause and how much it means to them. Well, if it really meant so much to these people, why didn't they do it for free? How about a free motorcycle dedicated to everyone in the world is starving, accompanied by a check to the U.N. for $100,000, and someone to drive it across the US asking for donations of money and time??
The possibility that we're really a "rogue species" that will self-destruct out of sheer complacancy and stupidity no longer seems untenable, as every day goes by with so much tragedy and so few people even paying attention, and even fewer doing anything about it.
Kind Regards,
Michael
- - - - - - -
From: Neal@...
To: m.@...
If you give money to the UN it will be wasted. Right now they are having a big self congradulatory "conference" in one of the most expensive cities in the world, San Francisco, attended by the uber-governer of Calif. his highness Arnold Schwartznegger. Read President Mbeki's comments on UN, he's woken up. Is it merely a military alliance and world police force? The amount of money spent on this conference with its "work shops", all the travel expenses, per diems, nights out on the town, etc. could have been better spent on any number of good projects with real results. It's one thousand times the waste of a hog/chopper dedicated to a war.
But your right on, there is tremendous economic potential from grass roots organizing, it just has not been realized yet and people are rightly distrustful of "charity" and "aid" pyramid schemes.
I sent an interesting piece by a Zambian journalist on the pitfalls of foreign "aid" and the net result of it to Sepp and it is very revealing from the African perspective. I think that journalist was fired from his paper as his e-mail is no longer valid.
But, again, unless people with some expereince and their supporters get alternatives through, nothing grandiose to start, on the ground to challenge the only games in town foreign aid schemes, nothing good will happen. It's just tough to convince anyone after all the scams and skimming and religious oriented carrot and stick schemes to go one more time into their collective pockets after getting collectively burned this last quarter century. People also need to know that what they are doing is in their interest too, not just give aways, and with regard to climate alterations, air pollution, degenerating oxygen content, food and water security risks, desperate migrations of poor people away from environmental destruction and war, it is, as we say, an investment for everyone to support our fellow human beings in restoring this planet to some semblance of its former working self.
But here we are just talking about it. At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite, what about our own conference to take place in a developing country, so that what money is spent is of benefit to people who really need it so much more that San Francisco Conference industry? Meet each other face to face, focus on integrated planning for energy, agriculture and water resources coupled with restoring damaged environments, strenghthen each others organizations, or join forces?
I can suggest with near certainty that places like Africa, Sri Lanka, Melanesia, Latin America would be very open to this. They want competetion, not just one plate on the table.
Or, how about a conference that is co-joined with the start up of an actual project???!!! Now there's something that I think people could get behind.
So many places I've seen need just a little bit of quality power to make a real difference for thier communities, not much, but reliable quality power. Nothing could be more needed in rural health clinics for treating water, running auto-claves, refrigeration. So appreciate Sepp, et al 's interest in energy, very important!
Tired of writing about it, somehow people must challenge the idea of a centralized bureaucratic control structure hogging all the work with poor results. The UN mandates were supposed to acknowledge the need for regional control and self sustaning infrastructure, not permanent employment and "bases" for UN officials. Recently, in response to a somewhat critical grouping of messages to them from me on African Affairs, the local Pacifica official left radio station (controlled by Ford Foundation and CIA) answered with a broadcast announcing the UN conference in SF and the commentators guest, proclaimed that the UN was the only organization capable of taking on environmental projects internationally.
Such a statement is an unmitagated fraud. The people in their own countries are the ones to do the work, not fat cats in suits with cocktail glasses at the ready instead of a pick and shovel. There is a world of experienced people out there ready to work, but unwilling to be cuaght up in some bullshit UN nonsense.
Why should we all be taxed to support the UN so that it can filter money it claims is owed it by us with their terrible nonexistent track record? They just skim the money for their self perpetuating academic dilletante lobby. Contractors, engineers, agriculturalists, farmers, hydrologists, energy specialists, who know about real work just stay out of it becuase they know its a lot of crap. This is what I've found out from our network, they are people who know how to treat a customer properly, like a community or a government ministry looking for partnerships, they just don't want anything to do with some parasite organization like the UN trying to control everything.
On the energy front, i've allready made so many contacts in solar, micro hydro power, bio-fuels , bio-mass, these are decent people at the highest level, but they just shake their head when you mention projects associated with any foreign aid schemes. 90% paper work, 10% work - that's where the money winds up with these poeple. Small organizations in developing countries are howling about this, the time they waste on paper work, to be reviewed by more paper pushers, then their ideas and project plans stolen and siphoned off by corrupt UN officials and other insitutes they beg from. Another colleague in Africa was brutally murdered last fall and he was particularly vocal about this, an engineer with
real experience. Just more ugliness in the real world outside the well paid fat cat land of the UN.
Maybe "fair trade" and mutually respectfull partnerships are a better way to go, to compete with Monsanto and the rest.
Not to add ammunition to that j... Bolton, but it doesn't matter what political stripe you are, a simple accounting of the UN "programs" and the net result after 25 years should be enough to convince anyone that it is not working and not becuase of "lack of funding".
So I have made a speech here, it should probably be read at the UN conference in SF. They call questions or comments to their official line "interventions". What does that tell you? "interventions".
They treat their employees and other supplicants like children. Anyone who has even a slightly different view is villified and condemned. Like Pres. Mbeki and the S.A ministry of health.
Hang in there! regds, Neal
- - - - - -
From: m.@...
To: Neal@...
Dear Neal,
Just quickly regarding power for areas without, there are millions of alternators worldwide sitting in scrap yards and God knows where else that can be used to generate power locally. I've even talked to people here in Holland about it. Most alternators can output 110vdc with a few changes at reasonable amps (I used to use the one in my pickup to power a 2hp 110vac electric chainsaw) which can be inverted cheaply from the marketplace to ac if necessary. It's all sitting right there to be used where there is a wind, water, wave, thermal currents, an engine source, like a motorbike engine, or even human or animal power into batteries - imagination fitting what's available in the surroundings. Given tools and a little ingenuity, small power generators aren't out of the question, but more out of thought.
Kind Regards,
Michael
- - - - - - -
From: Neal@...
To: m.@...
Dear Michael: I wonder if reconditioning alternators might be a cottage industry combined with your suggestion? Physical distribution costs have to be reasoned out when an idea for recycled commodity transfer from north to south countries takes place. The marine industry and small vessel, yacht industry has alot of ideas to look at for power (Holland sure comes to mind when I think of maritime). Some of what we proposed is already taking place in Kenya using solar power. With a twenty five year gaurantee (and most of them last longer with good results) or even 30, the cost/benfefit ratio is good. But, it's expensive, not something for common folks on farms, but for community based power needs at certain locations, like health clinics. Or, water pumping in various forms.
Where there is a farm tractor, there is excellent opportunity for power generation off the pto shaft. You have agriculture producing seed oil (castor tree, hemp seed) with small presses. Now I have just today read an article that methanol is to be produced totally from waste vegetal bio-mass of any kind, thus eliminating the questionable production of same from Corn. This is a big breakthrough (methanol needs to be mixed with vegetal or seed oils to create "bio-diesel"). Also, we have here in Ca. some people running their diesels on pure vegatable oil, not bio-diesel, they have a separate tank to carry diesel fuel to heat the engine up to operating temp. and then switch to pure oil!
In developing countries, wind power should have a place, but caution is warranted where a mechanical operation is subject to continued wear and maintenance, replacement scheduling where fabrication of gearing and metal parts is difficult and expensive. I think a breakthrough for wind power will come with power storage improvements. Of course, in Holland, one expects wind power tech leadership.
I 'm thinking, you almost always need an alternator, right, if it's mechanical power production? So, given some fairly standardized forms of rural power that attach readily to any suitable alternator reconditioned for use could be very sensible. Also, as we have seen in Melanesia, one small generator running on, preferabley, bio-diesel produced locally, or pure oil, can be wired to village community for simple thing such as lights (no TV). Well, so much to consider.
I've been studying and researching micro hydor power a lot these days and have a hydrology engineering firm dedicating some volunteer time to research for me. This is not something, it appears, to be taken lightly in terms of home grown set ups. You just have to have a proper set up of lasting quality for it to be reasonable. But maybe someone knows differently, always open minded on these things. People could, however, set up simple water wheels of home built wood design, come to think of it, and there's a fit for the alternator. So much dependent there on how to store the energy safely. Sometimes, you don't need to store energy for it to be used effectively.
Mostly, at this stage in the field from what I 've observed power is needed in water pumping, water purification and community resource like health clinic. A tractor is good, when you have a pto, becuase you can build a little shed around your generating facility with a shaft sticking out of the shed, tractor backs up to it, pto attached and just let the thing idle. On my Kubota 3300 that would be alot of power just idling and that's a perfect tractor set up for say a village community to share. Lot's of good used tractors too around. Again, it's transport costs that are key there....is it worth it?
We like solar power for rural so much becuase there is no moving parts, extremely low maintenance, long life of unit, same inverter set up as with other set ups, expandable and for many uses, such as water pumping, no need for power storage. Battery technology is a relevant factor in any of this and we have seen many sad scenes of abandoned lead acid batteries (particularly latin america) a toxic nightmare that needs to be avoided in new power schemes for rural areas. Island communities are particularly sensitive to poorly conceived power generating schemes and use of batteries. Nice local people do not always understand dangers of toxics over long term.
Keep communicating. Don't mind my rant on UN. Just hoping for more direct approach.
NP
- - - - - - -
From: m.@...
To: Neal@...
Cc: sepp@...
Subject: Re: giving money to the UN
Date: Sat, 04 Jun 2005
Dear Neal,
Re: batteries, for one. Many of the lead acid batteries that are discarded because they won't hold a charge are actually still good, but sulfation has coated the plates, rendering them unchargeable. A number of years ago I found an extremely simple battery rejuvenator/charger comprised basically of a bridge rectifier and motor run capacitor, and one day I tried it on my car battery because it wouldn't hold a charge any longer. I hooked it up and ran it overnight.
The next day, I put the battery in my car and it started immediately, and I used that "bad" battery for over two years before it finally died for good. There are new devices called pulse chargers that will do the same thing, but not for the $5 it cost me to build mine. Another thing to consider.
As far as alternators go, running one steadily at half maximum output (30-50 amps @110vdc) will let it last a long time - if you calculate how many actual hours it takes to drive 150,000 miles, you'll find that it's a good long time, so a redundant system employing spare alternators that can kick in when one fails is a cheap way to get power from basically scrap materials, and all you need is an engine - any engine, as I've described - to power it. A Honda 90 engine taken from a wrecked motorbike, a small car engine, etc. You don't need a tractor to create that kind of power source - all you need is a diesel engine, or gasoline, if you can access that fuel as well (diesel is nothing but unrefined gasoline, by the way - you can distill diesel further into it). There's also the Firestorm sparkplug which no one will build for the inventor (he also invented the famous Splitfire sparkplug), but which can increase economy and power of gasoline engines remarkably.
One of those in a Honda 90 engine (or any other) will yield very high efficiency along with increased power. I have invented an extremely simple fuel reforming device that works best in constant rpm situations such as used to generate electricity. You will recall that engines don't wear out while running - they wear out primarily from starting cold, so a constantly running engine that is well cared for and run at mid-power can run a long time. As I said, there are a million ways to "skin the energy cat" - all one needs is the imagination and the tools and pieces to do it. The "McGyver" TV show was a good example of it. Certainly one would need a reliable source, but for people who have no source, even one that needs attention now and then is better than nothing, until the reliable one can be had.
So, the point might be here ......united u n d e r what or whom? So here is my message to Sect Gen Kofi Annan and other potential participants in this competition:
Dear Sect General Annan: Here is my idea, (does this sound like a Monty Python skit?). Rename the UN and rework the entire foundation of this new international assistance and relief organization. I suggest you work hand in hand with President Mbeki on this.
The old "UN" is so obviously a military alliance of the Anglo-American European powers that squeezed through into being after WWII after it foundered as the "League of Nations" after WWI. The term "united" suggests or even requires a central authority figure UNDER WHICH, the member countries are subservient to. Now, as President Mbeki has rightly complained, this "UN" seems to be degenerating into a world police force acting on the orders of "the security council". (This "world police force" is not to be confused with the rank puppet show recently appearing on the silver screen, thank you).
My goodness, President Mbeki's criticism might be confused with the right wing element in the USA dencunciation of the UN! Well, they want to throw out the baby with the bath water. That's not necessary.
First rename the thing to get some breathing room. My candidate is.....hmmm, this is much harder than I thought........well, something with the term "Sovereign Nations" in it perhaps. It cannot have the term "united" in there anymore. That's scary. That's military talk, police talk, let's have non of that.
How about "Sovereign Nations Cooperative"? (SNC). Oh no, cooperative will excite the republicans again. sounds like evil communism. OK. .....hmmmm. Well you can see the problem. Why do we need a unifying mega bureaucracy to handle what can now be accomplished easily by cooperating national bodies integrating their information over our brand spanking new information super hiway!
Perhaps all we need is an "international clearing house for ideas"?
I am an ardent opposer of donor funding to the poor countries.Ask me.This has created a culture of dependence and a vague belief that we Africans especially cannot do without begging.I call it that because there is no substantial reosons to account for the foreign aid.Let our African leaders realise this,no matter how bitter it may be.Use our resources to develop our states.At timmes we are campaigning for debt cancellation,wstern countries are not fair on.and so on. But this is our on liking.African countries are producers of most raw materials but importers of all finished goods.The point is this stop begging and use our available resources to improve the welfare of this continent.
Posted by: emma anne on June 10, 2005 10:08 AM
what are the changes that have taken place in third world countries and what are the sffects on child slavery??? also what are the affects on the children who work long hours in sometimes very dangerous jobs that only pay them little.....
Posted by: Tess on June 29, 2005 04:44 AM
Africans need used tools and Tractors to work.
I need some used tools and used Tractor to work in Bouake,La Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa.
I'm a Secretary General for an Association.
Posted by: Louis Yennon on July 14, 2005 12:54 PM
Your concern for Africans is the right thing you are doing.Please put your concern in actions.We need your representatives in Africa on the field to visite us and see for themselves.We really want to work to feed ourselves.Continue your wonderful work.Thanks.
Posted by: Louis Yennon on July 22, 2005 04:13 PM
Please assist me with organizations that may offer some used tools and used tractors or used tractor parts for us to work.I need their contacts-E-Mail addresses.
Posted by: Louis Yennon on July 22, 2005 04:20 PM
I received this email in response to a recent article by Beldeu Singh on the oxidative AIDS hypothesis, titled: Are AIDS, CFS Caused By Oxidative Damage? but it is inherent in the theme of this article - foreign aid and the international agencies overseeing its use.
Says the commenter:
"I must admit, this has me thinking. Whatever the riddle of HIV = AIDS, etc., the treatment protocols must have a "holistic" component. That seems clear enough.
Our last trip to Fiji was entirely depressing. The government spends money on the strangest t things and refuses to even consider community health support in critical waste water and sanitation. Simple waste water treatment engineering at the most basic level is ignored, in the meantime, ministry of health parades around the rural islands in virtual yachts with big publicity innoculating with vaccines. It's quick, cheap from a human labor standpoint and not requiring any serious attention to detail by public health ministers. That was their embarrassed response to our reports, I suspect, as they did it during our visit. I've even offered to keep everything quiet, not embarrass anyone and make sure that our suggestions and survey data appears to come from ministry. A zero or fear motivated lack of response is evident because money is involved. Even physicians who we reported to in the local area, immediately and supportive at first, are silenced apparently.
It is unbeliebable what is happening, early 20' th century science and public works engineering ignored or even covered up to protect reputations and "funding" from WHO, which apparently, at least in the case of rural fiji, has no position or program for public health based on afore mentioned principles. There is a huge disconnect between verbiage and what is observed in the field. There is zero information from any public agency including UN concerning village waste water disposal options and site planning of any kind. All they have to do is search the internet. I think its the "controllers" of information dispersal in Fiji (UN and various NGO's) that are responsible for the lack of information from which Fijian ministries and communities can draw from.
I don't know if you've seen the Movie, "something or other gardner" about Kenya and Kybera slums in Nairobi. It's all about a brave "saviour" white woman who takes on evil corrupt bad guys in fight against AIDS. I can't be fair to it since I walked out of the film . The main reason of my queesy feeling (literally), was the UN food program commercial proceeding it.
This commercial shows happy, healthy young AFrican children (non over age of 10 years), playing laughing and dancing and in general worshipping a white woman who looks like Angelina Jolie, with some subliminal visual references to the UN. there are no AFrican adults shown. Then, the scene shifts to huge military air transport planes dumping loads of "aid" in form of food packages. In a gloomy, superior sounding, lecturing tone (similar to what one hears at these "conferences") a female voice booms forth to inform the audience in no uncertain terms that the UN food program "feeds people, right now, every day, on the ground".
The whole thing has the air of a military recruitment video we see here before movies show. I call it "farming AFricans".
This is a message from Neal Perrochet, founder of the Environmental Restoration Institute, to one of the officials that co-ordinate the protection of coral reefs. It shows the problems international 'aid' has arriving where it really should be: on the ground working.
Steve, I downloaded your report of sedimentation, etc. I appreciate the fine work you've done to bring attention to this matter of shoreside pollution and watershed degradation among other things.
However I must stand by earlier statements to ICRI in the past - this is a known factor for decades, why are more studies needed? Where is the commitment of expertise and money to actually rectify the problem with physical work related projects? You should be helping in the field getting it on with local people to do the work that is needed. I've worked with all kinds of soil scientists, botanists, engineers, hydrologists, etc ..... we say, go for it.
The last "project" I saw the WWF involved in in Fiji was circulating a "population survey" to the rural island communities. Maybe instead of WWF at these parties you might think of engaging and inviting actual people from communities affected into the decision making process or at least hear from them and not just the pre-selected govt officials wined and dined at these affairs.
The remedies are known and available but the people who can make it happen are not invited to the big party conference circuit. We don't want to attend parties and conferences on tropical islands at public expense. Our clients want to work. Our clients are community groups in rural villages. The research has been done to death. This is the message relayed to me by top government officials ifrom African nations, among others.
All the air travel expense, lodgings expense, per diems, conference organization expense should be used to develop a serous "capacity" to do work. Of course this work should be complemented by good research and consulting by scientist such as yourself!
There is no serious native tree and plant propagation program for watershed restoration in the entire of fiji islands and the nation has been ripped off completeley, along with african nations and south american nations, by UN programs introducing non native pest species, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, causing in many cases near irreparable damage.
We have proposed establishing this "capacity" endlessly in Fiji for 3 years, but we don't have bribe money to spend on govt officials like the Japanese govt and EU/USA or their front "NGO's" do in abundance. No one will work with us who has "funding", but we have, or at least had for some time, the most support of any organization on Ono island. All our Google links to Ono island project outlines have suddenly been erased and dated material from WWF appears, complete with photos of dumped over anchors with signs attached from boats onto "preserves", thus "saving" the environment.
That's right, if you googled up Ono island Fiji on google on one day, you would see at least 5 first page links to ERI and ODEO, now nothing and replacing it WWF dated material from years ago. Might I add that the WWF paper solution and posting of a sign has been a complete failure and confused and caused conflict among villages. It's easy to have some paper sent out, have it signed and dump a concrete block over the side of a boat with a sign on it saying your traditional fishing grounds are now subject to oversight by an "international NGO" sponsored by the very countries that are ravaging your natural resources and environment. Hmm. Get real ICRI
Those of us who are professionals in the field of native plant restoration and watershed management have spoken out for at least 3 decades on this fruadulent Int Aid scam for "reforestation". Californians, as usual, led the way in exposing it. As of 1980, it was still being practiced and the island of Ono was "reforested" in this manner after a devestating typhoon in 1979. The consequences have been very bad for reefs and people.
Soon, I imagine the great astrolabe reef will become property of the UN under the "world heritage site" real estate scam. But first they've got to get rid of all those pesky rural islanders, get em bottled up in the cities where they can be controlled. Ahh, tropical paradise with just a few black servants around would be so nice. Suva awaits the refugees.
I 'd like to get funding for an east africa interchange with melanesians over experience in the area of land stealing under guise of "global international protection" and "nature reserves". Especially, you could get the Masai to tell of their experiences and that environmental protection and conservation doesn't mean you give up your land to a bunch of slick linternational lawyers working for the WWF or the IUCN or the UN, SEACOLOGY, etc.
The japanese contingent of ICRI, that now uses restoration and environment in its title and has a circular logo like ours was another japanes govt insitution before. We approached them for support under their old title. They blew us off, then proceeded almost immediately to change their name, to lift work and original concept idea from our web page and partially copied our logo and our introductory statement. This is pretty typical in our experience. People who have spent decades being humiliated and degraded by japanese govt as unrealistic or immature "environmentalists" are now copied by their govt to look good to the public and carry forth an agenda for material resource extraction in Oceania under the guise of environmental policy implementation that more often than not blames indigenous people for damaging the environment while they pay off govt officials to sweep the seas clean of fish around their archipelagos.
If Japan's near shore and coastal environments were not so degraded and destroyed from their manic pursuit of construction projects and industrialization, they wouldn't have to patrol the worlds oceans looking for fish and the same is true of USA, EU, China etc.
If ICRI fail to integrate political economy and honest evaluation of motives behind the supporters of your organization and the net result of their efforts these last 25 years, what good is fine research like yours?
Nothing personal my friend, we appreciate the fine work you have done to bring attention to this matter.
ERI has, I think, the finest network in the world for physical work in native plant propagation, I would say. We want to engage with Oceania botanical experts in this field. But the people with the most experience outside academia to bring forth projects just don't want to get involved because they would rather be working and not wasting their time with e-mails like this and paper burocracies.
I am on the official shit list of the current govt of Japan and my own country on matters having to do with free speech completely unrelated to qualifications and expertise in the work we are trying to assist our clients in performing. Japan is a blood money supporter of the US/British/Australian baby killer machine in Iraq. Anyone vocally committed to exposing this is simply shut out. The UN does not like to be exposed as the world's biggest military alliance, run by Europe and the USA. Anyone who seriously questions any protocols of UNEP, WHO or the UN in gereral is black listed from support.
The Japanese govt, the EU, the USA, Britain and Australia spy on environmental project specialists and researchers to learn if they are "politically incorrrect" and discriminate against people who, aside from their work, denounce criminal genocide agianst people of color who have resources those countries covet. (Japanese govt officials are "honorary whites" similar to their status in South Africa berfore the demise of apharteid).
Big "evil" publically owned corporations are more regulated by ethics and laws relating to financial accountability than the UN grab bag. President Mbeki of South Africa and others in the fast fading "non aligned " countries have criticized the UN on this basis and its military role.
As a former marine claims settling agent, I can spot fraud and criminality a mile away when it comes to international physical distribution of goods, especially "foreign aid". Perhaps that's why the UN is totally averse to even communicating with me on any subject or project suggestion. Where will the money come for drugs, booze and prostitutes if UN is opened up to financial accountability protocols consistent with those employed by "evil" corporate bad guys?
Wait a minute, how did we get from watershed management to "conspiracy theory"? Just making a joke on myself. We've made plenty of mistakes ourselves first getting into this "NGO" thing. We go out and engage and take advice from people that know more than us on a given topic or issue relating to environment. That's how professional people organize and coordinate good projects.
Please feel free to circulate this e-mail to your colleagues (or not). As ERI is discriminated against by the funders and backers of ICRI and blatantly defrauded by the Japanes govt, they are discriminating against our valued clients, who await recognition for their efforts and ours to physically work to regain their self reliance and choice environment.
In my own country, unless you are a fundamentalist
missionary Christian, no support from our great leader's govt. is possible. So, compared to japan, EU, etc, we are the worst.
Sincerely, Neal Perrochet
chief cook and bottle washer - ERI.
Posted by: Sepp on December 18, 2005 02:29 PM
I got a mailing from the One Campaign of Bono to end poverty and AIDS. Not agreeing with the methods proposed, I tried to show my disagreement by unsubscribing. But it turned out not to be as easy as I thought. Here is the email I wrote in answer to BONO, posted here for the record...
Bono,
please unsubscribe me from your mailings. I tried to use your unsubscribe feature (link at the end of this mail), only to put my email and then end up on a "not found" page.
Finding another unsubscribe link, I tried again, but the "submit" button apparently does not lead to any action...
So please manually remove my email address from your database.
I do not subscribe to a campaign that pushes pharmaceuticals for AIDS. The reasons for this can be found in articles on my site. If you're interested at all, go to
www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/ and search "AIDS". You will find a number of articles that explain why it is not proper to give people toxic medication when they present with the AIDS syndrome.
Perhaps the single article that best describes why pushing AZT is in error, is HIV/AIDS - A Tragic Error.
Thank you for putting up a campaign to improve things. But please pay attention to the details - lest you push in the wrong direction.
Kind regards
Sepp
p.s. I also do not subscribe to a campaign for debt relief, without concurrent changes in the economic pre-conditions that the poor countries labour under. My view is here:
Well, Sepp, You see these people in Africa or Melanesia, they can understand what is needed
Bono and Gates are vaccinate em and AZT em to a better future. Not one penny of gates foundation goes to infrastructure for public health, community environment or agriculture that I know of. Well, at least we know we'll have plenty of starving poor people living in trashed environments who are well medicated! Thanks for your courageous efforts my friend.
Neal
Posted by: Neal on December 22, 2005 01:58 AM
Thank you SO much for your insights. I am co-founder of a social investment company based in South Africa, and have had the pleasure and pain of being a development practitioner for years.
I think that you may also find the work of Ernesto Sirolli interesting. We all believe firmly in local intelligence to solve socio-ecomomic problems I have a problem with global aid destroying societal fabric that enable communities to be enterprising. However, there is a place for humanitarian aid if well directed.
One thing worth noting when reading Mr. Evans Munyemesha is that he does not back up his arguments very well. That is not to say that I don\'t agree with a large number of his points (I do), it\'s just worth pointing out that he has little actual evidence, either anectodal or statistical.
His main evidence that aid is not working is based on steady per-capita declines in African agricultural productivity and GDP since the 1970s in Africa. What he fails to mention is that since the 1970s, Africa\'s population has almost doubled.
While he claims that aid hasn\'t helped because of reductions in per-capita agricultural productivity and per-capita GDP, actually (as far as I know), agricultural productivity and GDP have increased, just not at as fast a rate as population has. This is ambiguous at best, and certaintly doesn\'t indicate a failure of aid. Moreover, it just indicates that Africa\'s population growht rate is outstripping it\'s economic growth rate.
I do actually agree with many of his points, but I dont\' agree with the way he backed them up, as I find it somewhat deceptive and over-simplified.
I don't know whether your comment is made to promote your blog, Owen, or if you really mean what you say.
I agree that Munyemesha is not too good at documenting, but his view certainly resonates with those of others who have been in the business of prividing development aid in a non governmental capacity. An example would be the previous comment of Neal Perrochet of the ERI.
In any case, it will be interesting how your own activity will develop - as you say you're an engineering student working in Zambia, presumably on an aid project.
I have activated the link from your name to your blog, so people can go and check it out.
Posted by: Sepp on April 12, 2007 05:09 AM
The Individual Is Supreme And Finds Its Way Through Intuition
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