Foreign aid alone is not the path to nation building, experts say

By Alex Brockman

OTTAWA — Since 1967, developed Western democracies have been donating money to the developing world. Canada is no exception.

But, as parts of the world remain scarred by violence the question remains: is this aid effective?

An example of this is the West Bank and Gaza, which has already received $729 million in humanitarian aid in 2014 according to the United Nations.

Canada pledged about $22.7 million dollars as part of this fund and is the sixth largest national donor to the region.

In addition to this humanitarian aid, in 2012-13, the Canadian government gave about $26.7 million in combined development aid to the region while naming the West Bank and Gaza a “country of focus” in its development policy.

“Development programming reinforces Canadian diplomatic efforts to promote a negotiated two-state solution by helping to establish a law-based, peaceful and prosperous society that can ultimately become a state for the Palestinians and a stable and secure neighbour for Israel,” Nicholas Doire, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Development and Trade, wrote in an email.

According to the Canadian government, sustainable development and a “lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians are both objectives of Canadian foreign policy” in the West Bank and Gaza.

But what are the tools for achieving these goals?

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Development and Trade, aid is delivered through several channels:

• bilateral aid, which is between Canada and a non-governmental organization (NGO) or the government of the developing country;
• country programs, which are carried out with the country receiving the aid; and
• multilateral assistance, which is money delivered to an international agency, such as the World Food Programme.

Does foreign development aid work?

It is through these channels that the money pledged to help those affected by natural disaster and war gets to the people on the ground. But how effective is this aid?

“There’s a lot of soul-searching about whether we’re doing humanitarian aid right,” said Charlotte Lattimer, a fellow with the Development Initiative, a British think-tank.“The amount of humanitarian aid has gone up considerably, but there are still questions about whether we are meeting the needs of the people.”

This ‘soul-searching’ goes all the way up to the UN, where plans are underway for the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.  It will address humanitarian effectiveness, reducing vulnerability and risk, innovation, and the needs of people in conflict.

While humanitarian aid—money given in response to a crisis—is critical to stabilizing countries affected by conflict and natural disaster, it only makes up three per cent of resources flowing to developing countries, according to Development Initiative’s Global Humanitarian Assistance 2014 report.

“Much more significant than humanitarian assistance is the long-term development assistance,” Lattimer said. “What we’d like to see is more developmental resources earlier in crisis situations to prevent crises and support recovery long-term.”

Some researchers say real development needs more than foreign charity. It involves developing the security of the person, which has its own challenges.

“Development can’t happen from external agents. The government, organizations, and people in the developing countries must be active participants,” said Nipa Banerjee, a 33-year veteran of the Canadian International Development Agency who served in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Bangladesh.

The traditional bilateral way of delivering aid often results in a relationship where the donor country makes all decisions about the use of the money, Banerjee said.

Foreign aid and Palestine

There are some who say this bilateral aid is exacerbating problems in Palestine.

“Donor aid in the West Bank and Gaza is driven not by domestic priorities or developmental needs, but by politics,” said Khaled Elgindy, a fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute.

Khaled Elgindy is an expert in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. © Brookings Institute

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say development is a prerequisite for peace or statehood, but it certainly helps. The absence of peace hurts development,” Elgindy said.

“Conflict tends to distort development in many ways. Palestine is no exception.”

Elgindy served in Palestine as an adviser to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority from 2004-2009 during permanent status negotiations with Israel.

He pointed to traffic stops and check points set up by Israeli soldiers as being part of a life in a place where predictability is a luxury.

The Embassy of Israel to Canada said there must be a balance between Israeli security and Palestinian development for peace.

“The equation for peace remains the same. Only by offering security to Israelis as well as prosperity to Palestinians, will we be able to dramatically change the situation and provide the peace everyone deserves,” a spokesman for the embassy said.

But how are either of these things able to happen when there are constant reports of violence and retaliation from one side to the other?

International donors have pledged $5.4 billion to rebuild Gaza after at least 100,000 residents lost their homes during the 50 day conflict between Israel and Hamas in the summer of 2014 according to the BBC.

Banerjee said that while there are difficulties comparing the situation in Palestine and her experiences in Afghanistan, the key issue is about programs being given legitimacy through the support of the people.

During her time in Afghanistan, aid was not successful because it “was not delivered with the face of the government, it was delivered with the face of Canada,” and the people of Afghanistan did not get behind it.

Rethinking Aid

Banerjee said without local people driving projects, foreign aid can never move beyond charity.

“The problem with providing provisional development, you need to have successful programs and these cannot come without security. Building schools is not the best way to provide an education, building is not the issues. The issue is getting the students together,” Banerjee said.

Daryl Copeland, a former Canadian diplomat, wrote that a new framework is needed for security—human-centered development—in his 2009 book Guerrilla Diplomacy.

“The well-being of the people is paramount as the basis for a new international policy upon which the world can construct a new kind of security,” he wrote. The key issue is making sure “fear and want” are taken out of the lives of people living in the developing world.

This new holistic approach may be the way forward for international humanitarian and development aid and bring predictability into the lives of those in the developing world.

As continued violence between Palestinians and Israelis shows, it is not possible to simply spend the problems of poverty and conflict away.