Listening attentively to a paper on Aid and the Millenium Development Goals at the NZAE ’09, it occured to me that perhaps the traditional aid model should be completely ditched. I let that thought swirl for a few moments whilst i considered the ramifications and then came back to the idea with a simple vision.

Let peer to peer aid be the new model driven by people not governments.

Why are governments involved anyway? Well that’s not about aid really, its about influence…ok let’s be brutal it’s about money and power. Yes it’s all about politics: quid pro quo, backhanders and the rest of it. We’ll give you money and you help us out, vote for us at the UN or give us some nice contracts for whatever.

That’s the good bit. Now let’s see it in action. Up the government chain on one side and down the other. Hands out all the way up, across and down. Let’s not even go there. Of course some governments take this seriously and see aid as a genuine redistribution of national income but the model has been sorely abused over the years.

Even locally we had the Niue government telling the NZ PM that if it didn’t receive aid quickly it would turn to China instead. It doesn’t get more blatant than that. More and more aid has become a strategic tool in the foreign office of wealthy nations.

Francis Fukuyama recently reviewed two books on the subject both with similar themes but differing opinions: “The Challenge for Africa” by Wangari Maathai and “Dead Aid” by Dambisa Moyo. What I like most is that these are books coming from Africans themselves and women as well. It’s a refreshing change to Western University academics. It’s also an area of quite passionate debate. Here’s a great debate with Dambisa Moyo, Hernando de Soto, Paul Collier and Stephen Lewis on whether foreign aid does more harm than good.

Some issues are clear: corrupt governments and a weakened civil society; years on the western government welfare teat; trade barriers and resource depletion. The West carries the guilt and assuages it with cash even if its straight into the Swiss bank account of the latest tyrant.

So if governments are the problem why not remove them from the picture?

Well perhaps that is what will happen. Today the UK Conservatives unveiled a new policy on aid. As part of that they proposed a Gbp40m fund called “My Aid” which would allow the people to vote on their favourite aid project. Ok this all sounds a bit like the next reality show but for me it signals a subtle change in direction.

What if governments simply dropped their Aid budgets and gave that money back in either tax cuts or tax credits for giving? What would happen?

- Microfinance would take off.

- Giving platforms would widen and internationalise.

- There would be more targeted and personal involvement.

- Social Media would drive this (TwitterAid?).

- This would lead to grassroots build up and development of localised civil society.

- It may lead to an increase in giving as government moves out of the way.

- And maybe less celebrity nonsense as well!

Above all this p2p Aid model would be people driven and . as with microfinance, be very empowering. The aid infrastructure will still be necessary but that too may require some modification or restructuring. The Kiva and Wokai models will be very useful for this as will giving and donating platforms.

I wanted to share this story about the rehabiltion of child soldiers in Africa. It’s nothing short of a human tragedy and deserves our attention. About 10 years ago I did a course on the International Dimensions of Human Rights. One fact that really troubled me was the sheer numbers of children who had been co-opted by force into becoming soldiers and ultimately killers. The use of drugs and torture was commonplace and the results horrific.

Yet out of this comes a story of healing which has lessons for all of us especially those in developed countries where teenage crime is on the rise. I’ll leave you all to draw your own conclusions.

On a recent trip back to the UK I was fortunate enough to visit Salisbury Cathedral and the site of the Battle of Naseby. Both are significant historical sites but linked together by virtue of their place in the development of democracy as we understand it today.
Salisbury Cathedral holds one of the four remaining originals of Magna Carta, the founding document which spells out the relationship between King and Subject. It’s a magnificent piece of history.

The Battle of Naseby, in a Northamptonshire field, was the key to the English Civil War, as the King’s Men were routed by the Parliamentarians. 4 years later Charles I was executed and England became a republic of sorts until 1660. This period was a test of Magna Carta, a rebuff to the over zealous monarchy and a statement by the people that they would not have their rights trampled over.

The reason i mention this is because of this post by Gareth Morgan who is chugging is way around Africa and writes a very neat piece on the continuing disaster that is African democracy (not in all countries of course).

Whenever we grumble about our political system a quick dip into the history books should quickly remind us of  how we got here. It’s a shame history is not taught seriously anymore but it often helps us develop a sense of context when we lose our perspective.

I finally got round to seeing the Last King of Scotland yesterday. I thought it was a great film not just because of its portrayal of Idi Amin but also the feckless young Scottish doctor who arrived in Uganda hoping to help out, make a difference and have a bit of adventure (preferably sexual).

As Amin prepares him to meet his maker he makes some interesting points to the young man. He tells him in no uncertain terms that Africa is not a game or a place to come a play the altruist…it’s real….and reality is often brutal and bloody. His death was the first real thing the young doctor would experience in his life. As it happens he got away and we are left feeling that the message got through.

Of course the film is fictional though based on the book of the same name which drew on various people and factual events to create the character of Dr Carrigan. Complete with stereotypical English diplomatic spooks, menacing local enforcers and locals with big hearts but no hope, the film almost falls over but for the fact that it’s a fair representation of life in Uganda at that time.

It’s interesting for me also becuase in recent weeks i have met 2 people from Uganda in different contexts both who struck me as being very hopeful about life, passionate about making a difference but also aware that potentially similar problems may be lurking around the corner.

So that brings me to the point of this blog…….is Robert Mugabe the last King of Africa? Watching Zimbabwe implode is not very pleasant even for the dispassionate observer. The similarities with Uganda are there though not as obvious as one might think. Certainly the paranoia is setting in, the violence is on the increase and the general population is now suffering from food and medical shortages, inflation, unemployment.

Mugabe has already used up his fall guy card – the British – with white landowners having been given short shrift over the past decade. So the only people left to get stuck into are his own…..surely he doesn’t have much time left?

The nature of the dictator as a sociopath is well documented. Intransigence and unwillingless to listen are other unwelcome attributes. But is this just an African problem? I don’t think so. Look at Iraq, Serbia even Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley finally agreed with Sinn Fein yesterday as they sat down next to each other…..apparently “never, never, never, never” doesn’t always mean never.

And who is running Russia right now? Surely Putin is only a few steps away from a fully paid up authoritarian….he’s just doing well economically so can afford to be beneficient at the moment.

That could change.

Many old timers weep tears for their beloved Rhodesia but how can a country be prosperous based on the subjugation of others and the expropriation of resources? All around the world we are seeing a slow unwinding of the colonial and imperialist adventures of the last 500 years. Freedom, self determination and removal of the yolk of centralised and external authority is the story of the day. For Africa, stuck in the whirlpool of historical tribal and ethnic conflict, post colonialisation changes, grinding debt and the arms/resource trade, times are difficult.

The best thing the international community could do is to eliminate historical debts and aid at the same time under a guarantee that funds would go towards schools, hospitals and basic infrastructure.

Other than that people have to sort out their own problems in their own backyard. Human nature will no doubt continue to interfere with any positive outcomes but everywhere there are people with hope and the will to make things work.

As they say in New Zealand, she’s a hard road ahead.

debt, zimbabwe, poverty, conflict, mugabe, political institutions, un declaration of human rights, sustainability, new zealand, education, violence, politics, money, africa, uganda, future, Uncategorized