I met Habib, this cool little Afghan dude in the province of
Maydan Wardak where Medair is working. He was shy but also interested enough in
me to overcome any fear he had to draw close to this visitor, so very different
from any of the other people where he lives. The nearest town with a decent
bazar is about three hours away when the roads are passable and only if you
have a four wheel drive vehicle. When these factors are combined with his
access to quality healthcare and the general levels of infrastructure, economic
opportunities and the dominant cultural norms of life in his village, meetings like
this, for him or me, may not happen that often. I had my own fear.
Specifically, I was praying that he would not say the following words: “Hey
mister, give me money!” Anyone who has travelled even briefly in a materially
poor country like Afghanistan has experienced this phenomenon and power dynamic
which defines you as a wealth resource to be tapped. Habib simply said to me salam
alekum (lit. peace be upon you), smiled and then stared sweetly. What I
think was going through his young mind is pure conjecture but when I think of
him I find myself hoping that he will experience a life free from the worst of
the humanitarian sector and foreign interventions – disempowerment,
exploitation by the West and dependency – which are so pervasive in such
countries.
My observations over the past few months have served to confirm
what I realised early on in my first job as an aid worker in Afghanistan four
years ago. Namely, that the priority for the vast majority of local people when
it comes to NGO and community relations seems to be money. Certainly I have
helped to assist some vulnerable people in that time with clean water and other
project deliverables, but mostly it has seemed to me that financial motivations
have been at the heart of formal interactions. In fact, the biggest
beneficiaries I have dealt with have been national staff employees. There is no
denying that the injection of cash for projects stimulates the local economy
with some positive effect but this should not be a primary motivational driver
for NGOs and it is certainly not part of the humanitarian imperative. It is
clear that the priorities for the current guards at work are making sure they
are paid, fed and warm in winter. A few days ago there were two guards working
their shift and three guards eating because it’s better than being at home.
This is true to the point that our guards would prefer not to even take annual
leave but instead come to work and stay warm, eat for free and hang out with
their work mates. It may also say something about family life but if a
country’s best, or only good, employers are NGOs then you know things are
pretty messed up. The Afghan economy grew exponentially following 9/11 due to
the cash injection required to facilitate military intervention and the
accompanying humanitarian effort (in my view a close relation not only because
the source of finance is the same). The rise of contractors supplying army
bases, bags of cash (literally) from such countries as Iran to support Afghan
government operations, and local companies geared towards delivery of development
projects saw a flourishing of wealth like never before. Yet all of it is, and
was, unsustainable. Unlike poppy production and trade in opium, which though
illegal and detrimental (not least to drug users in the West) functions as a
genuinely financially viable and sustainable commodity, most of the billions
that bloat Afghan national finances are not authentic. The majority of aid
money has benefitted the few (usually through very corrupt means) and the more
entrepreneurial enterprises that sprung up are reliant on an artificial funding
source that is drying up and was never durable. What is left of the real
economy is much distorted and less robust than what existed before.
It speaks volumes that all NGOs operating in Afghanistan are
overseen by the Ministry of Economy. Aid agencies are a great source of wealth
and have a greater functional capacity than the government, which of course I
hope would do the work of NGOs if it could (a very big presumption). NGOs here
have been asked to collect the tax out of payments to contractors and rent
because the government has little capacity to do it themselves. However, they could
do this. It would take time, effort and perseverance to establish a
functional system of revenue collection but getting NGOs to do it is not going
to help build that capacity or an administrative apparatus that can govern and
serve its people. By using NGOs to capture revenue integrates them into the
fabric of governance of which they should have no part not least because they
won’t be here in the future (or so I naively dream). Wouldn’t a refusal by NGOs
to collect tax and the resultant lost revenue be a motivation to get their shit
together? Nothing is going to change if they don’t and using NGOs as tax collectors
is an indictment upon both parties. When the inefficacy of aid programmes is
considered in light of the revenue it involves, the bottom line seems to be
about economics more than anything else. Why don’t we cut through the crap and
simply call it what it is, ‘wealth redistribution’. You may argue this would be
correct and fair. And I would agree. Many poor nations deserve financial
reparations after decades and sometimes centuries of actual or virtual
occupation. It would be more efficient to give cash and forget about all the
planning, resources and time that go into most of these projects and rarely
bring the results promised. Unfortunately and rather predictably, they are
reported on in such a way to justify not only their existence but to encourage
greater ongoing funding. We could simply give governments money directly to do
as they saw fit. We’ve never witnessed this level of trust in recipient governments
by the aid sector or wealthy nations. Nor have we ever seen good stewardship of
funds by the vast majority of poor countries’ leaders without a dirty political
deal being part of the equation. A more productive way of bringing
transformation to countries like Afghanistan might be for the West to be truly
charitable for a change and actually trust them with the money they are
granted. Let them decide how to go about the business of governing and take
responsibility to do their job and improve the lives of their people. Let be in
their hands and on their heads. Critics will say that we are funding dictators,
genocidal maniacs, terrorist organisations and the money will never go where we
intended. How that would be so very different to what we have been doing for
years?
The West only spends a small percentage of GDP on aid and development
(at most it is less than 1% and when considered together it is less than half a
percent, a lot of which comes back to consultants and
contractors in the West). We could simply make annual payments to poor
countries with no conditions, simply a hope that they will do the right thing
by their people. That way these countries could decide everything for
themselves, even use foreign advisors and construction companies if they chose,
do exactly as they saw fit. That level of national self-determination would be
an improvement on the status quo. Or here’s a radical idea, forgive all their debt
(partially done in the past but never comprehensively) and not tie poor
countries into things like “defence” deals where they have to buy something
stupid like 50 fighter planes from the donor country in order to receive the
money. Shockingly I discovered during my last contract in Haiti that the government
in that newly-created country back in 1804, having defeated the French
militarily to free themselves from slavery, was later compelled to pay
compensation for lost revenue to French land holders and slave owners for the
next century and a half. That is a damningly poignant example. France, a country
founded on great principles of liberty, equality and ‘brotherly love’, did the
opposite and other European powers did worse. Tragically and in different
guises, the West keeps doing the same thing time and time again. In Afghanistan
we see an ugly yet familiar pattern repeated which blights our common humanity.
For all its genuinely good intentions, sadly including my own, the humanitarian
community is complicit with a bigger Leviathan than we can ever imagine. Despite
our best efforts, even if we wanted to, we can never practice what we preach.
And that my friends, is la vie humanitaire.
No comments:
Post a Comment