Vanity Fair devoted its July 2007 celebrity-laden issue to saving Africa, with feature articles such as “Madonna’s Malawi.” In what might qualify as a surrealistic moment, the Administrator of USAID asked a staffer to summarize the policy conclusions of the Vanity Fair analysis for U.S. foreign aid.
That from Bill Easterly in a new paper: Can the West Save Africa?
I’ll give you a hint: his answer is “no”.
Being Bill Easterly, he’s sprinkled the paper with irreverent gems like Madonna’s Malawi and, my personal favorite, the enduring stereotype of Africa as “starving AIDS-stricken refugees being slaughtered by child soldiers”.
The paper does tackle serious business, though. One message: Africa’s not doing as bad as you think. Another refrain: there are no grand solutions.
The debate on whether the West can “save Africa” revives a long-standing debate in development economics. One side of this view sees very rapid and comprehensive social change as possible, emanating from an elite of political leaders and outside experts who can start from a blank slate in achieving development.
The other side sees only gradual social change as possible… emanating more from the emergent self-organizing order of many decentralized private entrepreneurs, creative inventors, and one-step-at-a-time political reformers, all constrained by existing traditions and social norms that have evolved for their own reasons over a long period.
Bill is strongly in the second camp. It’s an oversimplified dichotomy, he admits, but it’s a useful starting point for rethinking development strategy.
To my surprise, I more and more find myself leaning back to the first camp. I’m no fan of big solutions from bigger international experts, but I’m more and more convinced that it’s local leadership that matters–even if it is of the elite kind. What is Singapore without Lee Kwan Yew? Rwanda without Kagame? Liberia without Sirleaf?
The trick, though, isn’t just getting the right leader, but getting him to leave. Think Museveni in Uganda, or Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
It isn’t like I have this all figured out yet. But I will venture one opinion: the West ain’t saving nothing.
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We need to get rid of this idea of “saving Africa”. It’s not only patronising, it’s misleading.
“Saving” presumably means “solving a problem that was putting lots of people’s lives at risk”. So I could justify describing the invention of a new malaria drug as “saving children from malaria”. If we tackle the problem urgently and creatively, we might even be able to “save the world from climate change”, by which I mean avert the most catastrophic sea level rises, droughts and so on.
To describe poverty reduction or development as “saving the world” or “saving Africa”, however, perpetuates the victim mentality of much of the aid business. These people can’t look after themselves, so we need to save them. It makes no more sense now than it did when the first Portugese missionaries set off to “save Africa” and brought the slave trade and a host of diseases with them.
I know most serious development people (including the readers of this blog) probably avoid using the “saving” metaphor – but we need to go further than that. We need to get it out of the mainstream media and consciousness. Maybe we should start by being humble about what we do.
A few thoughts…
One, I agree with you, whatever the West is doing, it is not “saving Africa.” Nor should it attempt to. As outsiders to the societies we have picked interest in for one reason or another, I would argue we have little idea what is going on behind the scenes politically (or economically, etc). To presume that one can successfully cut and paste “development” solutions from country to country is unfounded and even dangerous.
Two, I although I agree that leaders matter tremendously, I do not think the dichotomy presented has to exist as such. Under the right conditions, a strong leader with little to no entrepreneurs, etc. can develop his or her country (a la Rwanda) quite effectively, and a country with strong entrepreneurial spirit can thrive despite arguably questionable leadership (a la Uganda of late). Of course a country which has both may fare even better.
The longer I spend in Uganda the more frustrated I become with the donor community which has distorted domestic priorities and continues to arrogantly assume that it understands the country and politics better than Ugandans who have lived here and studied their society for their entire lives.
The sooner we get over ourselves and realize that we should stop trying to “save” those who can more effectively “save” themselves, the better off the citizens of these countries will be. A little humility wouldn’t kill us.
It’s beyond obvious, but “the West” is having a pretty difficult time keeping itself on track. I suspect the current financial crises will afford an opportunity to see firsthand what diminished Western intervention in Africa might look like.
I’m worried about, of course, endogeneity. I think leaders matter (as shown in Ben Olken and Ben Jones’ work) precisely in those societies that are weakly institutionalized. Part of political development is exactly institutionalizing and bureaucratizing governance so that leaders and their capricious whims matter less, and predictable, well-ordered rules matter more.
Individual, elite leadership matters exactly in the same weak states that underprovide the public goods needed for development. The tragedy of omitted variable bias strikes again….
This question has always been the flaw in Easterly’s position: Easterly advocates exclusively for accountable, grass-roots and homegrown initiatives. This leaves little room for policies and projects that may not seem immediately beneficial but are of deeper strategic importance, such as the development of research and higher level education.
In Western political systems we have struck some compromise between what the people want, what the people don’t want but specialist elite know are good for them, and what is neither good nor wanted but beneficial to the elite. Africa needs exactly such a balance. To claim that even benevolent dictators in Africa offer this seems to me naive.
So, after 2 months in East Africa I want to make some observations. I am not sure I want to see either Kagame or Museveni leave right now. Both states are doing pretty good in many regards. Rwanda has amazing roads, very good salaries, a rather contained AIDS problem, many people or ARVs (I went to two hospitals in Kigali last month and I was shocked to see how many people go there and know exactly he side effects of every ARV pill). Rwanda, over all, is doing pretty good. Uganda as well actually. I did research last month in Uganda and I had to admit that Uganda is in a much better condition than in the past. There are pharmacies everywhere. Salaries are not very high but not very low either. The situation in the North seems to be better. Overall both countries are in a pretty good shape. Also, I want to remind you guys that no economists or anthropologists have managed to prove the connection between long-standing presidents and economic regress. There are some obvious inconveniences but still, over all, things are different. Otherwise how could you explain than in 2004 the GDP per capita of Togo was slightly higher (by 10 dollars) than Romania’s or Bulgaria’s in Eastern Europe, one being a dictatorship the other 2 not.
Mr. Blatman, thanks for the reading reference. I am a huge fan of Easterly’s work so I am always very happy to read smth new by him.
What is the major difference you see between Kagame and Museveni? All I see is a ten-year delay. Heck, given their history, it’s plausible that they have exchanged notes on remaining in power.
Some Wikipedia factoids place them firmly in the same ballpark:
– Failed State Index: Rwanda 89.2, Uganda 96.4 (lower is better)
– Democracy Index, out of 10: Rwanda 3.82 (“Authoritarian regime”), Uganda 5.14 (“Hybrid regime”)
Let’s not go praising our new dictators before they’ve predictably entrenched themselves….
What is Singapore without Lee Kwan Yew? Rwanda without Kagame? Liberia without Sirleaf?
To follow this thought to the logical conclusion: Zimbabwe without Smith? Japan without MacArthur? Egypt without Lord Cromer?
You seem to want the west to help ensure the presence of strong, elite rulers. How is this different than imperialism?