Is there anything more comical than a Minister from a developing country preparing to travel first class? At the announcement of ‘priority boarding’, the Minister – typically, an overweight middle-aged man, dressed in impressive attire and in possession of the latest mobile phone technology – quickly moves through burgeoning crowds of people in the only way that he can: by pushing and shoving. But as he approaches the front of the line, he is greeted by countless angry faces, and is forced to stop in his tracks. He is told by a number of these angry faces that they are also travelling first class, and, like him, are also waiting to board the plane first. But perhaps more to his astonishment is the other group of people: those in possession of priority cards, which are awarded to frequent travellers by most airlines these days – individuals who, despite wearing t-shirts and jeans, are also entitled to board first. ‘What are these “loyalty cards”, anyway?’ he asks himself. ‘Am I not this airline’s most loyal customer? And, do these simple people not have proper clothes to wear? Do they not know who I am?’
This is certainly alien territory for the well-dressed Minister. Accustomed to such privileges only extending to himself and a small group of other elites and ‘hand-picked’ individuals back home, he is reduced to feeling like a commoner for a few minutes. He is outraged, of course, because he feels that he is above these people, particularly those dressed in t-shirts and jeans. After all, was it not he and he alone who was sent to New York on connecting KLM flights to negotiate the deal with the multinational oil company, which will commence drilling offshore at home in less than a year? Was it not he and he alone who was dispatched to London aboard that British Airways flight last month to negotiate the royalty rate for the mining company that has been operating at home for five years now but which the president now believes should be paying some tax? And was it not he who was sent the month before, at the last minute aboard a United Airlines flight, to Washington DC to negotiate a country-level financial bailout package with the IMF?
This behaviour is the ‘Politics of the Belly’ at its finest. This is precisely the type of behaviour we have grown accustomed to seeing, time and time again, from high-ranking officials abroad. Would you expect anything less from the ‘faces’ of autocratic governments, or elites who are in complete control of private and public spaces in their own countries? We continue to feel sorry for the impoverished masses these individuals marginalize to stay in power. But perhaps the humbling – and, from his perspective, completely embarrassing – experience of this Minister is a bit of a consolation prize in an unforgiving environment, where there are so very few positives. The marginalized masses can surely gain some solace from what for them, is a rare ‘chuckle-worthy’ moment: where a corrupt high-ranking public official, who cannot be held accountable for his actions by the public, uses scarce foreign exchange from the government coffers, rides someone else’s jet first class and stays in a five-star hotel to negotiate deals that will net very little money for his country and local people, is made to feel ordinary.
Tuesday 28 October 2014
Tuesday 21 October 2014
The Response to Ebola = International Development Project
The more and more West Africa’s Ebola crisis rages on, unabated, the more and more it is taking the form of a typical international development exercise. What I mean by this is that, like all work conducted under the international development project, the activities being undertaken here in the name of humanity – most of which, at times, may seem quite bizarre and unexplainable to the curious onlooker – are, in reality, products or outcomes of complex global power dynamics and negotiations at work. It has nothing to do with what people are led to believe development to mean: that is, helping the poorest of the poor who are in the greatest of need of assistance. It is rather a case of those who can help only helping when it is in their interest to do so.
Thus far, the pattern of Western aid has been somewhat predictable: The United States has sent 4000 troops to its favourite bilateral partner, Liberia, to assist with the crisis; Britain has agreed to send 100 army medics to Sierra Leone, one of its most important bilateral partners in Africa; and France has done its best to look the part in Guinea, one of its former colonies, by setting up a military hospital staffed with doctors. Additional support has come from the likes of the United Nations, and, of course, the usual NGO suspects – principally, Doctors Without Borders – are now rooted in the region, its staff risking their lives to treat the infected.
But what has also been predictable is the timing of – or more fittingly, pedestrian response of – most Western assistance. People have condemned the United States, Britain and France for failing to act promptly and allowing the crisis to, well, morph into a crisis. Some (most recently, here http://opencanada.org/features/the-global-souths-fight-against-ebola-correcting-a-humanitarian-bias/) have also pointed out how parties in Africa, for the most part a recipient of and dependent on donor aid, has pledged more in assistance to tackle the deadly disease than we have in the West. Further criticism has been levelled at the World Health Organization for failing to contain the disease at its early stages. Efforts by the UN to mobilize donations of finances to its Ebola Trust Fund have come up short: as of a week ago, there was only US$100,000 in the coffers. Accusations have also been levelled at the World Health Organization but that its very existence and the vibrancy of its programs are contingent upon continuous receipt of annual contributions of UN members, its role in this context is more cosmetic than substance. The general arguments being voiced by a number of parties are that Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea cannot stop this crisis on their own: that they do not have the resources or expertise to bring it under control. This is why, it is argued, the West must pledge more assistance to tackle the deadly disease.
What is being lost in this discussion, however, is why Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are ill-equipped to handle the crisis in the first place. In the former, accounting for close to three-quarters of GNI is the US$800 million received in aid monies each year, a large chunk of which is from USAID. Moreover, the UN had, up until a few years ago, spent in the range of US$300 million annually in Liberia on a peacekeeping force. Yet, prior to the crisis, the country had only 200 doctors and Bomi’s Liberia Government Hospital, located next to the Ebola site, has not had an operational X-ray machine since its one unit ‘blew up’ in 2012. In Sierra Leone, it is much of the same thing. Here, aid accounts for approximately 18% of GDP but for some reason, the country has only one health worker for every 5300 people. In Guinea, it is even worse: whilst close to 20% of national GDP comes from donors, according to the World Bank, in the country, there is roughly one physician per 10,000 people. Who has received donor aid in these countries, and what conditions have lenders attached to this aid?
The Ebola outbreak has exposed the realities and many nuances of the international development project. The sad reality is that it often takes a crisis like this to illustrate how inept it truly is…
Thus far, the pattern of Western aid has been somewhat predictable: The United States has sent 4000 troops to its favourite bilateral partner, Liberia, to assist with the crisis; Britain has agreed to send 100 army medics to Sierra Leone, one of its most important bilateral partners in Africa; and France has done its best to look the part in Guinea, one of its former colonies, by setting up a military hospital staffed with doctors. Additional support has come from the likes of the United Nations, and, of course, the usual NGO suspects – principally, Doctors Without Borders – are now rooted in the region, its staff risking their lives to treat the infected.
But what has also been predictable is the timing of – or more fittingly, pedestrian response of – most Western assistance. People have condemned the United States, Britain and France for failing to act promptly and allowing the crisis to, well, morph into a crisis. Some (most recently, here http://opencanada.org/features/the-global-souths-fight-against-ebola-correcting-a-humanitarian-bias/) have also pointed out how parties in Africa, for the most part a recipient of and dependent on donor aid, has pledged more in assistance to tackle the deadly disease than we have in the West. Further criticism has been levelled at the World Health Organization for failing to contain the disease at its early stages. Efforts by the UN to mobilize donations of finances to its Ebola Trust Fund have come up short: as of a week ago, there was only US$100,000 in the coffers. Accusations have also been levelled at the World Health Organization but that its very existence and the vibrancy of its programs are contingent upon continuous receipt of annual contributions of UN members, its role in this context is more cosmetic than substance. The general arguments being voiced by a number of parties are that Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea cannot stop this crisis on their own: that they do not have the resources or expertise to bring it under control. This is why, it is argued, the West must pledge more assistance to tackle the deadly disease.
What is being lost in this discussion, however, is why Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are ill-equipped to handle the crisis in the first place. In the former, accounting for close to three-quarters of GNI is the US$800 million received in aid monies each year, a large chunk of which is from USAID. Moreover, the UN had, up until a few years ago, spent in the range of US$300 million annually in Liberia on a peacekeeping force. Yet, prior to the crisis, the country had only 200 doctors and Bomi’s Liberia Government Hospital, located next to the Ebola site, has not had an operational X-ray machine since its one unit ‘blew up’ in 2012. In Sierra Leone, it is much of the same thing. Here, aid accounts for approximately 18% of GDP but for some reason, the country has only one health worker for every 5300 people. In Guinea, it is even worse: whilst close to 20% of national GDP comes from donors, according to the World Bank, in the country, there is roughly one physician per 10,000 people. Who has received donor aid in these countries, and what conditions have lenders attached to this aid?
The Ebola outbreak has exposed the realities and many nuances of the international development project. The sad reality is that it often takes a crisis like this to illustrate how inept it truly is…
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