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— village November - December
immoral
Is cutting aid unethical? Theorists and critics of aid to the world’s
poorest should recognise the moral imperative
j u s t i n f r e w e n
Overseas Aid
’ Village Magazine, Tom
Arnold, CEO of Concern, articulated the crisis
being faced by Irish aid organisations due to
the Irish government’s recent swingeing cuts,
decreasing Irish Aid by % from € mil-
lion in to an estimated € million this
year. He notes that while certain cutbacks were
expected, given Ireland’s current parlous eco-
nomic state, the “depth and extent of the cuts is
truly shocking”. Although the hatchet taken to
the Irish Aid budget has understandably aroused
the concern of the development sector because
of its potential impact on aid programmes, the
Irish government prefers to emphasise Ireland’s
current overall high ranking of sixth on the per
capita international aid ladder. Others claim we
should be looking after those who have fallen on
hard times closer to home. Or deny the existence
of any moral obligation to assume responsibil-
ity for assisting those living in distant lands. At
the same time, a considerable number of ana-
lysts, particularly economists, reject the whole
rationale of aid. They claim it is the wrong mech-
anism to tackle the plight of those suffering from
extreme poverty, hunger and other ills. Instead,
inter-state trading structures and frameworks
should be improved to enable ‘developing’ coun-
tries to participate more effectively in the global
marketplace.
What is beyond dispute is that poverty
continues to be a critical global concern.
Approximately half of the world’s population of
six billion lives on less than US$. a day with
some . billion people living on under US$.
Despite significant reductions in child mortality,
. million children under five died in .
Moreover, inequality continues to increase
exponentially. By , .% of total private
consumption worldwide was accounted for by
the wealthiest % with the poorest % enjoy-
ing a mere .%. Given the persistence of such
poverty, despite the expenditure of some US$.
trillion over the past years, is it not time to
accept that development aid does not work? In
any case, does charity not begin at home?
To respond to these issues we need to
consider the following questions. Firstly, the
ethical one as to whether the lives of those
in faraway regions should be considered less
important than those of our family, neighbours,
and fellow citizens. Secondly, if our response is
even a conditional ‘no’, is aid the correct manner
in which to proceed? The Australian philosopher,
Peter Singer, strongly maintains the absence of
any ethical justification for favouring those close
to us when in doing so we expend resources that
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could provide equivalent or greater succour to a
superior number of people elsewhere. Thomas
Pogge, who writes extensively on global justice
and world poverty, is less demanding when he
stresses that people in affluent states surely have
some ethical responsibility for alleviating the
suffering of others, particularly when it comes at
such low relative cost. Perhaps the British moral
philosopher Ted Honderich best illustrates our
ethical responsibility when he talks about the
“half-lives” suffered by those living in the poorest
nations. While people in the North enjoy an
average lifespan of some years, an average
person in Malawi has just over years to look
forward to - a half-life at best. Moreover, those
doomed to half-lives are, at any stage, more likely
to be in bad health. For Honderich, the conclusion
is clear. We have a moral responsibility to “try to
save people from bad lives – this is the stuff of our
moral obligations and rights”.
However, though this may be the case,
perhaps aid is not the best means to fulfil our
‘moral obligations’. After all, as previously
discussed, extreme poverty is still widespread
despite vast expenditure on development
assistance and aid. Furthermore, while a country
such as China has significantly reduced its
incidence of poverty, it can hardly be claimed
this was a result of international aid. Rather,
China’s increased participation in the world
marketplace is frequently mooted as being the
keystone to its success. Therefore, in order to
tackle global poverty, should we be concentrating
on increasing trading opportunities and
removing obstacles to free trade to facilitate
the full participation of less economically
developed countries in the global marketplace
instead of investing in physical infrastructures
in ‘developing’ countries, where funds might
be wasted on projects favouring corrupt élites?
For Mike Moore, the ex-head of the WTO and
former New Zealand PM, the answer is obvious.
Increased trade will benefit developing countries.
He observes,”Seven years ago, we introduced
at Doha what was to be a “development round”.
All trade rounds are. President Kennedy, who
introduced the Tokyo round, famously said: ‘This
will lift all boats and help developing countries
like Japan.’ Case made, I would have thought”.
But the supposedly self-evident logic of
Moore’s assertion is open to serious question.
Rather than developing countries needing to
become more integrated to the world market,
many argue they are already too integrated or,
more precisely, have been assimilated under
highly unfavourable terms. The economist
Ha-Joon Chang holds that every one of
today’s wealthy states applied interventionist
economic policies during their ascent and
then subsequently attempted to prevent other
aspiring nations from doing likewise. Chang
claims this is the primary factor inhibiting the
economic growth and reduction of poverty in
developing nations. Furthermore, as the devel-
opment geographer Richard Peet has pointed out,
despite a vast opening up to trade in ‘developing’
countries, there has been no significant increase
in their overall income. Even the minimalist
trickle-down rationale that operates on the prin-
ciple - as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith
once cogently, if indelicately, put it - that “if you
feed a horse with enough oats some will pass
through to the road for the sparrows”, looks ever
more suspect. As Jan Pietersee observes, the dis-
crepancies in income and wealth are now vast
to the point of being grotesque and are without
historical precedent or conceivable justification,
occurring as they have done in an explosion of
wealth over the same period.
So, where does this leave those fated to
endure the half-lives depicted by Honderich?
Are they to be cast aside in their misery, their
torments relieved only by the tenuous hope that
at some indeterminate moment in the future
improved international trading opportuni-
ties might, via an ‘invisible hand’, deliver them
from their debilitating circumstances? On the
other hand can we, as people favoured by the
accident of birth to live in a relatively affluent
country stand idly by and ignore their misery
and distress? Indeed, the current economic
crisis has had a disproportionate impact on
those already most impoverished. As the
World Bank’s Global Monitoring Report
highlights, the current international recession
has played a major part in reversing progress
made in reducing the number of chronically
hungry people, as their number jumped from
million in to million in ,
with a continued rise to over billion expected
in . While questions may justifiably be
raised as to the optimal means of disbursing
international aid, the effectiveness of particular
development programmes, the problem of
possible corruption in recipient countries and
the role improved trading conditions might
play in helping developing countries reduce
their poverty rates, it is ethically indefensible
to engage in indiscriminate aid cutbacks which
will result in an increased loss of life or rise in the
number of half-lives amongst the poorest and
most defenceless people on our planet.
“Approximately
half of the world’s
population of six
billion lives on
less than US$2.50
a day”
Women queuing for food-aid in Somalia
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