Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Director of Water Programs, charity: water, New York, Projects in Africa

Anunobi,

Let me speak for myself. I was not condemning foreign aid or endorsing it--in totality. My critique was specific and narrow, directed at the huge overhead that comes with aid delivery and that ends up consuming, by some estimates, as much as 50 percent of aid money, leaving a trail of unfinished and substandard projects. Which brings me to your question about "whose money is being misapplied (wasted) anyway....? Implied in the question is the assumption that the money is foreign money and so how it is used should not be the problem of Africans. Actually, most of it is not foreign money, since, apart from grants, bilateral or otherwise, these monies are actually low to zero interest LOANS to be repaid by the AFRICAN countries who receive the aid. The fact that much of aid money comprises of loans is precisely why Africans should take a keen interest in how the money is spent and on what it is spent. So, in many cases, the answer to your question would be that it's Africans' money. Therefore, I think it is legitimate for Africans to raise these issues.

Your "long term" implications of aid argument is one that everyone is familiar with and shares. I have not seen anyone who is not a critic of aid dependency. Yes, it is a more significant critique of aid but there is no reason why one should focus on it to the exclusion of critiquing the obvious cesspool of waste that the aid industry has become. Another point you ignored is that many of the aid projects can effectively--more effectively-- and more cheaply carried out by African skilled and unskilled labor but the conditionalities built into aid often require that foreign workers be hired from the "donor" countries. In other words, it is not the case that without these expensive, over-pampered foreign workers the aid projects cannot be carried out. The waste that comes with SUV, five star hotel and expensive holiday-laden lifestyles is therefore entirely avoidable. Often, however, the aid is just another opportunity for the "donor" country to create jobs for its citizens and contracts for its manufacturers. There is nothing wrong with "donor" countries deploying aid in a self-interested way. But there is also nothing wrong with highlighting this reality as a way to complicate and critique the simplistic, self-serving narrative of altruistic Euro-Americans helping helpless Africans.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with your point about pushing for less aid dependency at home and for reforms that would make aid unnecessary. That point is so banal that I don't think it should be a big part of this discussion.

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 9:06 AM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

I must be missing something.

 Is it being suggested that all "Euro-American" aid to Africa does not help targeted poor Africans because of budget inefficiencies?

Is it being suggested that foreign aid work should be devoid of some of life's comforts which serve as incentive for potential foreign aid workers?

Whose money is being misapplied (wasted) anyway if indeed many foreign aid budgets are misapplied?

It must not be forgotten that most foreign aid work are jobs. The jobs are often times some of the least salaried for those who choose to take the jobs. Foreign aid work in Africa is quite often times in unfamiliar, rural, and undeveloped communities and territory and laden with personal risk for foreigner aid workers.

There is not much that is wrong with criticism that are intended to improve the efficiency of foreign aid budgets.

Critics of Euro-American aid to Africa should however be slow to extended their criticism to foreign aid workers. Many of them risk life and limb, to help communities and people they did not have to care about. Does anyone know what the poor Africans whose lives are impacted upon by Euro-American aid feel and say about foreign aid?

A more serious gripe about all foreign aid to Africa it seems to me, should be about foreign aid's long-term effect on the can-do spirit of beneficiary countries (governments and people). Do we all know that foreign aid is an item in the national and other budgets of some African countries? Is it not the case for example, that President Mugabe of Zimbabwe argues that the criticism of and "hostility" to his government by the British and American (U.S.A.) governments especially, are the primary reasons for the decline in foreign aid to his country? President Mugabe apparently does not seem to know that  good governance and self reliance as viable alternatives to reliance on foreign aid.  Foreign aid is not all bad as inefficient as their budget implementations might be. Europe and Japan after the great war of 1939-45), and South Korea and Taiwan are cases in point.  

African critics of Euro-American aid to Africa may wish to consider using their knowledge and time better i.e. persuade African countries' governments to pay more attention to improving living conditions for their citizens such that all foreign aid to Africa is unnecessary sooner rather never.

 

oa

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2010 12:07 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Director of Water Programs, charity: water, New York, Projects in Africa

 

Pius et al,

 

We were just talking about this in my class the other day. The truth is that the SUV/Five Star Hotel (counter)narrative of the Mercy Industrial Complex (apologies to you, Pius), does not sell with Americans. Students, politicians, liberal, conservatives, regular folks, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't because it refuses to fit neatly into the feel-good rhetoric of American generosity and of the army of self-sacrificial Americans and Westerns that slaves in the scotching African sun and treacherous bush to bring development and uplift to Africans. Needless to say, when I broached the subject of the crazy overhead of NGOS and charities it didn't find many takers. Let's just say it wasn't the most popular segment of the seminar. It obviously threw a wrench in the settled self-narrations about American sacrifice for the good of Africans. When I personalized it and asked the students if, upon graduation, they would take a job with some "development agency" in some of the African villages we saw in class movies without "hazard allowances," comfortable SUVs, cozy hotels, and paid holidays, the class fell silent. Once I drove that point home, it became clear to them that the aid and charity industry is a global behemoth that "helps" and sustains Euro-Americans as much, if not more than, it "helps" Africans. This is precisely the reason why, broken as it obviously is, the aid industry is impervious to reform, rethink, and self-critique. Too many people, blacks and whites, are invested in it. 

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 10:31 AM, Tony Agbali <attahagbl@yahoo.com> wrote:

And Pius, don't also forget that image of "Mama Africa" painted by Wole Soyinka's "You Must Set Forth at Dawn," the kind that loves Africa more than Africans, while paving a way for a distinguished and functional lifestyle springing forth from donations.      Apart from the notion of ongoing western patronization of these unfortunate "uncivilized," hapless and helpless poor, so often visualized in civilizing and salvific constructs, this modified and modulated modern "civilizing missions"  further produce new imaginaries and images of Africa of a stunted continent. These evolutionized  tribe of new civilizers also become the official "mouth-organs" of Africa and African issues in the west, aided in large measure by the beguiling pixelized imageries of Kwashior and emanciated children daily reified on the media- TV, newspaper (secular and church ads), etc,).     Not only does this objectified pixeled images produce imaginative effects through the way it darkens and blurs the screen (in the case of TV ads),  but acutely and intently are designed toward jolting sympathetic action from the "civilized and privileged"  imagination into pivoting effective action that stimulates their consciences into reaching deep into their pockets.    It is not for nothing, therefore, that these imageries are often depicted in black and white photography or videography, as effective and profoundly symbolic tools in creating stark differentiations that cast and contrast between our ways and theirs,and through  masquerading the ideas of darkness, ancient, back-wood civilization, given emphasis to the heightened Dubyan ideology that pegs the distinction between "us" and "them."   --- On Wed, 11/10/10, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote: From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Director of Water Programs, charity: water, New York, Projects in Africa To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 8:00 AM   charitable organizations are legally supposed to list how much of one's contribution goes to overhead expenses and how much to the project. some are much better than others. ken At 06:19 PM 11/9/2010, you wrote: "Compensation: A competitive compensation package will be offered to the successful candidate."   This is always the annoying catch with these yeye American and European "charities." The compensation package is always the catch. By the time they pay for the brand new Pajero Jeep or Land Rover of this new employee, one or two free tickets back home to America or Europe per year, competitive incovenience allowance, a villa in the city from where to take episodic excursions to that bush Africa that needs charity water, a driver, and a chain gang of domestic aides, very little will be left of the $2 billion that this new employee is supposed to raise in order to facilitate the re-invention of charity.   Ask Bono.     Pius --- On Tue, 9/11/10, Jessica Matthews <devnetjobs@gmail.com> wrote: From: Jessica Matthews <devnetjobs@gmail.com> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Director of Water Programs, charity: water, New York, Projects in Africa To: "USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> Date: Tuesday, 9 November, 2010, 19:16 Director of Water Programs charity: water www.charitywater.org New York, NY charity: water is focused on providing clean, safe drinking water to 100 million people in the next ten years. To do this, charity: water is scaling its staff, its countries of work, its international partnerships-and they are-inventing charity in the process. The DIRECTOR OF WATER PROGRAMS will: • As a member of charity: water's Executive Team, help lead the organization and drive the cultural values that make our organization distinct. • Drive charity: water's program strategy and build partner capacity to fund $2B in projects over the next 10 years. • Have ownership of all funds sent to the field for project work. You'll deploy, monitor and report on $10-20M in project funding this year, growing to $500M per year over the next 10 years. • Develop and lead people and systems to manage continual influx of complex project data, and to scale exponentially over the next 5-10 years. • Develop and manage high-level relationships with NGO leaders, water experts, field engineers and community workers, driving testing and broad adoption of viable new technologies and best practices. • Drive quarterly project funding planning, including vetting and negotiating partner project proposals and coordinating funding capacity with fundraising and accounting teams. • Represent charity: water in the global safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) sector. • Uphold charity: water's commitment to transparency and efficiency by holding partners accountable for financial and project status reporting. We are looking for a truly remarkable individual to join the senior leadership team. The ideal candidate will display these unique qualities: • At least 5 years experience and expertise in international development, preferably focused on programs providing clean drinking water and hygiene and sanitation training to impoverished communities. • Experience with designing and managing scalable systems to track, organize and analyze complex project data. • Proven relationship skills with ability to develop and leverage productive relationships with NGO executives, water experts, engineers and field workers. • Strong communication skills, with ability to speak authoritatively at conferences, in meetings and on video. • Analytical, detailed and numbers-oriented approach to planning and budgeting. Education: Bachelor's degree is required. Advance degree a plus. Travel: Travel internationally at least 12 weeks per year. Compensation: A competitive compensation package will be offered to the successful candidate. For more detailed information, go to: http://devnetjobs.tripod.com/9november2010-charitywater.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.    For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue    For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html    To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-        unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsubscribe@googlegroups.com Kenneth W. Harrow Distinguished Professor of English Michigan State University harrow@msu.edu 517 803-8839 fax 517 353 3755 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

 

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