Categories
Africa

I Dared to Criticize Comic Relief!

Last week it was ‘Red Nose Day‘ in the UK, a day sponsored by a charity called Comic Relief who aim to raise lots of money for development projects around the world. Basically, Red Nose Day is a media sponsored fund raising day which manages to generate huge sums of money to help people all around the world. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think this is a good thing: rich people (which includes any Westerner) should help poor people.

However, one of this year’s efforts was to give away free mosquito nets to prevent malaria and a number of my friends commented on FaceBook what a good idea this is. Now, I agree that malaria prevention is incredibly important – but I don’t think that giving away mosquito nets is a way to acheive this and I said so on FaceBook. So, why don’t I believe in giving away mosquito nets (which are proven to cut down malaria)? The answer is very simply explained in an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal:

…what may appear as a benign intervention on the surface can have damning consequences. Say there is a mosquito-net maker in small-town Africa. Say he employs 10 people who together manufacture 500 nets a week. Typically, these 10 employees support upward of 15 relatives each. A Western government-inspired program generously supplies the affected region with 100,000 free mosquito nets. This promptly puts the mosquito net manufacturer out of business, and now his 10 employees can no longer support their 150 dependents. In a couple of years, most of the donated nets will be torn and useless, but now there is no mosquito net maker to go to. They’ll have to get more aid. And African governments once again get to abdicate their responsibilities.

It is counter intuitive, but providing huge sums of money and aid does not always help those that are targetted:

A constant stream of “free” money is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power. As aid flows in, there is nothing more for the government to do — it doesn’t need to raise taxes, and as long as it pays the army, it doesn’t have to take account of its disgruntled citizens. No matter that its citizens are disenfranchised (as with no taxation there can be no representation). All the government really needs to do is to court and cater to its foreign donors to stay in power.

Stuck in an aid world of no incentives, there is no reason for governments to seek other, better, more transparent ways of raising development finance (such as accessing the bond market, despite how hard that might be). The aid system encourages poor-country governments to pick up the phone and ask the donor agencies for next capital infusion. It is no wonder that across Africa, over 70% of the public purse comes from foreign aid. (Read the whole article).

HT. Ben.

I don’t have any answers, but the situation in developing countries is far more complex than we often think. Pouring huge sums of money into situations is not a way to achieve goals; not for governments, nor for Christian missions. Stimulating local initiative and ownership takes longer, costs less, is much more effective, but is far harder to do.

9 replies on “I Dared to Criticize Comic Relief!”

In this case, though, the mosquito nets they are donating are the ones that are impregnated with chemicals that kill the mosquito on contact with the net and lasts for 2-3 years. The local net makers do not have access to this sort of netting to make. (I believe 3M developed it). Even if the local net maker treats his nets with something to kill the mosquitos, it needs to be redone every few months.

These nets really do make a difference. The campaigns I have seen (one through my parents’ church) make sure an entire village gets nets at the same time. Couple that with the nets that actually kill mosquitos (rather than biting people THROUGH the net if you lay too close) and you have the potential to kill most of the mosquitos in a village.

Eddie, you may have left the field after the advent of the special pre-treated nets. They cost 3000 – 4000 CFA, about 1/3 of the price of a hand-made net. I know when the Jansens first got some of these, they said it radically changed their lives. The mosquitos were biting through the nets and driving their kids crazy. Until they got these.

I think you’ve answered your own comment by saying that local net makers ‘don’t have access’. Rather than empowering the local economy by helping local net makers make better nets, we drive them out of business by giving away a better product than the one they can make. Yes, the nets will last two to three years and in two to three years, the mosquitoes will come back and the villagers still have no local solution to their needs.

Most local dispensaries are nowadays able to do the impregnating. They usually offer it once a year before the rainy season starts. People do have access to the chemicals for impregnating but not always the finances. We always sent our own mosquito nets (and from all employees and friends) to the local dispensary. By paying a little more we encouraged them to get the chemicals and do it for the rest of the village at a subsidized price. Giving people an impregnated net that lasts 2-3 years only solves the problem of impregnating for a limited time.

I really appreciate your thoughtful writing in general, Eddie. Perhaps as you write your next notes on this, you might want to consider mentioning some of the potential solution you touch on in the comments? It’s a lot more effective to guide the river in a new direction than to dam it up, eh?

My question is… Shouldn’t we have a phased approach that recognizes that a country-wide net manufacturing system needs time to develop and that we may need to prevent deaths in the mean time? Most high-profile “aid is bad” articles I’ve read seem to ignore this potential issue.

It seems to me that an obvious first step should be to force aid organizations to buy their supplies locally. The net makers benefit from the extra income, the population benefits from the nets, the local economy benefits as the money makes its way from hand to hand. The only losers are the Western manufacturers who are only involved because they want the good PR these projects bring, while they make a tidy profit selling to the charities.

I don’t believe that a country-wide net manufacturing system would need time to develop. My experience in Africa is that their is enough entrepreneurial genius around to create what is needed to get nets or anything else distributed if only the incentives are there. Sadly, aid so often destroys the incentives which are needed. Part of the answer must be the solution that Bruce mentions – local sourcing of materials.

Remember that the author of the WSJ article I was quoting is African, not some Western theoretician.

Comments are closed.