Pablo
Rivera Rodríguez
REDUCING POVERTY EVERYWHERE?
DISCUSSING THE ALLOCATION OF “EFFECTIVE” DEVELOPMENT
When we talk about development cooperation, we immediately tend to think
of the poorest countries and the notions of “Third World” or “Global South”. We
acknowledge that these countries should receive aid in order to improve their
situation, but we usually ignore that “the situation” is not the same within
the country. Poverty is not evenly distributed in a country and, thus, we should
also consider the regional component when addressing the allocation of aid.
FROM MDGs TO SDGs…
The World Bank briefly referred to the importance of mapping extremely
poor regions and localities in its strategy to achieve the MDGs[1],
and it even considers that, today, the uneven distribution of poverty is the
greatest challenge and obstacle for its reduction[2].
In my opinion, donor governments didn’t pay enough attention to the
regional distribution of aid (especially in terms of “health and education”)[3]. An
old professor of mine would have explained the situation like this: “if I have
two apples and you have none, I will have something to eat and you won’t, but the
statistical average will say that we both ate an apple today”. Some regions
(and people) get lots of aid and some others get none, but for the
results-driven, numbers-focused aid system, the job is done once aid is delivered
(usually to more accessible, urban areas).
Nowadays we have shifted from aid effectiveness to development
effectiveness (as argued by The Global Partnership for Effective Development
Co-operation). This approach is now more “inclusive”, “transparent”, and
implies a greater deal of Southern intervention; it is still “based on results”,
although the goals we pursue have changed[4].
Indeed, we have moved from the MDGs to the SDGs, which are more detailed and
focused on actually improving the lives of the poor. For example, the MDGs were
criticized for “leaving behind 1.4 billion people in the fight against
poverty”, especially those who live in rural areas or conflictive countries (i.
e. the most inaccessible ones).[5]
To me, the most interesting goal of the new strategy is the first one,
which wants to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere”, as opposed to the MDGs’ “eradication of extreme
poverty”[6].
The difference might be subtle but it’s very significant. It implies that
development is no longer about “building a school here and there”[7],
but rather about comprehensively analyzing where aid is needed the most. This
requires both the donor and the recipient countries to get involved in plans
and strategies to get those out-of-reach regional populations closer to the
resources.
…BUT UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED POVERTY STILL STANDS
The SDGs use the correct wording, and their strategies seem to address
inequality within countries a lot better than the MDGs. However, their
practical implications are still far from accomplishing what they promised.
We want to eradicate poverty “everywhere”, but we keep translating
“everywhere” into “all countries”. Our multilateral donors (and I would add
some of the most powerful bilateral ones as well) “are uniquely good at directing
their aid to poor countries”[8],
but once aid gets there, their power and influence (even if conditionality is
present) start to decrease, both because monitoring gets harder and because we
believe our job is done after the disbursement.
The result is that, even after the shift towards the SDGs and
development effectiveness, most poor people in the world (“80% of those living
on less than $1.90 a day in 2017” [9],
and 85% of those considered poor according to the Multidimensional Poverty
Index in 2014[10])
live in rural areas. These areas usually lack the required infrastructure to
avoid being disconnected from the places where aid is received and managed. If
we add a violent conflict (civil wars, rogue warriors, etc.), aid is more
likely to be stolen and directed towards the war effort and the support of the
armed groups[11]:
as a result, urban, more “developed” populations suffer important losses of the
aid that is provided to them, while the ignored areas won’t even get to know
that aid was disbursed in the first place.
There are other important factors in the unequal aid distribution. On
the one hand, R. Briggs has proven that national political influences are very
significant in aid distribution: it seems that African governments take both political
interests and, to a lesser extent, ethnicity, into account when allocating aid
to the richest regions[12].
On the other hand, donors have realized that, even if there are poorer and
richer regions within a country, it is more economical to direct aid to the latter[13].
After all, since the whole country is poor (it needs an apple), they will
accomplish their goal by giving the apple to the (more accessible) guy who
already has one. Reaching the regions that have no apples would imply expending
extra money on infrastructure and equipment that, in the end, will not be shown
in their precious statistical results: “on average, everyone in the country has
an apple, so we’re done”.
SO WHAT DO WE GET OUT OF THIS?
Basically, we can’t really talk about “effectiveness” unless the (new)
development system is actually disbursing aid “everywhere”. I like the SDGs a
lot better than the MDGs, and it is true that poverty has been consistently reduced
worldwide[14].
However, it is important to address some issues that the SDGs seem to have
inherited from their predecessors (which are currently preventing its written
initiatives from becoming real solutions):
·
We should start focusing more on poor regions and
localities rather than countries: the smaller the territorial unit, the deeper
the analysis of its problems.
·
The increased involvement of the recipient government shouldn’t
imply a political and biased use of aid.
·
Donors should study where their aid is needed most
(and assume the costs of ensuring it gets there).
·
Statistical results should be analyzed more carefully and
should include the regional distribution of poverty.
[1] ClassReading1: UN
Millenium Project (2005): http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTTSR/Resources/MainReportComplete-lowres%5B1%5D.pdf
[3] ClassReading2: Whitfield
(2009): http://pure.diis.dk/ws/files/110182/WP2009_34_Refraiming_the_aid_debate.pdf
[5] ClassReading3: Hearn and
Stew (2015): https://cic.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/publication_hearn_strew_dev_goals_april2015.pdf
[7] ClassReading2: Whitfield
(2009): http://pure.diis.dk/ws/files/110182/WP2009_34_Refraiming_the_aid_debate.pdf
[11] ClassReading4: Hanlon, J.,
Solidarity, sovereignty and Intervention (Open University, 2013), p. 77.
Pablo: I enjoyed reading this as you seem to have reflected deeply on the issue. I specially like to apple metaphor. You point to one factor that explains the "urban bias" of donors, and suggest more should be done in rural areas, but in reality the developing countries are becoming increasingly urbanized. If this is so, what do you think can be done and do you think there are sufficient incentives for donors to make the change you suggest? Prof. C. Freres
ResponderEliminarEven if it’s true that rural areas in developing countries are becoming more and more urbanized, that doesn’t change the fact that poverty is unevenly distributed and that aid doesn’t reach everyone. One could argue that Spain is a developed and fully urbanized country, but even here we suffer from an unequal distribution of resources that makes some regions or areas more vulnerable. Just take the recent example of the train system in Extremadura: many developing countries would kill to have a train network like the one there, but when we compare it to the ones in Catalonia or Madrid, we see that regional poverty and inequalities do exist within countries like Spain.
EliminarIn my blog I referred to rural areas because nowadays those are the ones that have the biggest inequalities in terms of allocation of aid. However, it could very well be the case of a town within an urbanized region or a district within an urbanized city. My point is that some places and people are more accessible than others, and donors don’t really have any incentives to reach the less accessible ones (as I mentioned in my blog, the required infrastructures are costly). Nonetheless, if we really want to end poverty everywhere, both donor and recipient countries need to take the unequal distribution of poverty into account and act accordingly. One strategy that comes to my mind would imply either increasing the desired amount of aid we want to disburse (instead of $1,000,000 worth of aid, we would go for $1,100,000, and use the extra $100,000 to invest in infrastructures so that we could eventually get closer to those out-of-reach) or deducing part of it (disbursing just $900,000 and putting the other $100,000 aside for infrastructures).
This is not an ideal solution, but given the lack of incentives, it could constitute a first step for (hopefully more concerned and committed) multilateral and bilateral donors (as well as recipient countries) to build on.